Golden
an excerpt

“What girls want is a fantasy world that they can escape to, a refuge from the struggles and stress of reality, somewhere warm and forgiving away from school, teachers and parents, a place where all that matters is cute boys and shoes!”

At this the gathered group of suited editors promptly emitted a polite laugh and series and claps as the woman at the head of the boardroom table finished her somewhat repetitious, half hour speech with a smile and flourish of her hands. Reshuffling the collection of papers that she had been reading from and sitting back down in her chair, Sylvia Golden smiled to herself, proud of what she had achieved, or rather, proud of what she was going to achieve, and she had every right to be proud. Sylvia had spent the past thirty something years of her life trying to make it big in the world of the mass media, and after a decade of slaving away in the sweaty head office of a demanding newspaper, decided to call it quits. Instead she would grab life in both hands and reach for the big time, and decided that together with a group of her fellow undervalued, disenchanted but equally success hungry journalists and writers, they would form Britain’s newest and biggest teenage magazine.

It was a big dream, a huge daunting project, that she couldn’t deny, but the harder it seemed to achieve the more Sylvia wanted it, that’s just the way shed always been, you see, she never really had been one of those ’typical girls’ that she talked about so much in briefings and creative consultations. The only child of a financially driven, high powered career family, her parent’s academic expectations that Sylvia could never quite tell what they were. She could crane her neck and stand on tip toes all she liked, but the bar had been set so high that the trees blocked it from her view, leaving her with no choice but to take a series of shots in the dark, and hope that she was hitting the right targets. For al long as she can remember, that had been her life, working at break times, tutors after school, music practise every evening, extra lessons on the weekends. Sylvia read textbooks, not magazines, talked about grades not bags, worried about her exams not her hair. Sometimes she would lie awake at night, exhausted with study fatigue but unable to sleep, her brain buzzing my facts, she would conjure herself a fantasy land where nothing mattered expect for fluffy, feminine things that felt soft and squishy to touch.

Perhaps Sylvia Golden recognised that this magazine, her brain child and maim opus, was an elaborate shrine to her teenage daydreams, but far more business like motives were the ones that Sylvia described when pitching her new venture. A teenage magazine made sense to her investors, there were few examples of competition, prices were high and expenses low, all Sylvia had to do was think outside the box and she’d have a goldmine on her hands, or at least that was the case until Kirsten interrupted. Young, determined and unfashionably stubborn, Kirsten May had been appointed marketing director of Sylvia’s as of yet unnamed magazine, and was the daughter of one of Sylvia’s biggest investors; a lethal combination. Kirsten was one of those annoying people who always have something to say, something sharp, made cruel by the fact that it always directly contradicts other people’s ideas, but is never wrong.

“A fantasy world! Well that is a very sweet concept, but it that what girls really want? Television, films, books, celebrities, music, you name whatever media it is, and I’ll bet you that it’s selling some sort of fantasy world! It’s old news, no innovation, and do people pay good money for a new product selling them the same things as a old, trusted brand? No. Lesson in business number one, the consumer always wants the newest thing, but will only stick with it if it’s the best thing.”

Sylvia felt her toes curl, Kirsten’s patronising tone and post-graduate tendency towards know-it-all-ism was almost enough to make her want to resort to violence. Fighting back her urge to throw a pile of papers into the air in outrage, Sylvia bit her lip and concealed her anger behind a tight smile and polite nod.

“So what do you suggest then Kirsten?” Sylvia asked in as sweet a tone as she possibly could.

“What do I suggest? Well, I suggest the one thing that hasn’t been tried before, it’s been attempted but never fully exploited to it’s full potential.”

“And what’s that?” asked an excited writer.

“Reality.”