Welcome to Scam-a-Lot!

The Tom Ripley and Frank Abagnale of newsletters gets money advice from the journo who got scammed out of $50,000. Plus: The stories you need to know about this week.

What would make the perfect women’s magazine? Juicy yarns, hot goss, big ideas, deeply personal examinations of women’s lives—and none of the advertiser obligations. Welcome to the Spread, where every week two editors read, listen, and watch it all, and deliver only the best to your inbox.

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Benevolent Spreadqueeeeeeeens, 

If you’re anything like us, something has been haunting you for the last couple months. And that thing is…personal-finance writer Charlotte Cowles’s jaw-dropping viral tale of being scammed out of $50,000 cash. Though the Cut published it more than two months ago, the essay is still somehow everywhere—on our fellow book clubbers’ lips, on the Apple News home page (there’s now an audio version), in the ATM booth, and on the line with every “unknown caller”: Boo! Realizing that immersion therapy might be the only cure, we called up Charlotte¹ for an exorcism and a chitchat on all things moolah. But first: the best reads—and listens—of the week. 

Seacrest out,

Rachel & Maggie 

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Bridget Fonda (not Charlotte Cowles—don’t let the haircut fool ya) basking in the reupped glow of Cameron Crowe’s seminal 1990 grunge rom-com. Singles is getting its due in a quite gushy Sam Anderson essay in the New York Times Magazine’s new Modern Love issue. Read “The Rom-Com That’s Responsible for My Marriage” here.  

Drumroll, pleeeeeease: Presenting eight shan’t-miss stories of the week!

(Sex) Party of 20: The three months after Allison P. Davis introduced us to a Brooklyn polycule, we’re still contemplating the amount of Google-calendaring that a successful four-person relationship requires. Now, in the New York Times Magazine’s Modern Love issue, sex-and-science writer Daniel Bergner has one-upped (sixteen-upped?) the Cut with a deep as-told-to-style feature on a TWENTY-person Boston polycule. The result? More scheduling and therapy-speak than we could heretofore fathom. Also in the issue: An article on sexless marriages—maybe they’re just fine?—by

Amanda Montei

. Read “Lessons from a 20-Person Polycule” here and “Can a Sexless Marriage Be a Happy One?” here.