The sun glints off the white sidewalk on L Street in front of the Washington Post building. The real world slips past slow as syrup. A sex scandal that sizzled in darkest January is sputtering out.
You can opt out anytime. At the corner CVS drugstore, inside a fresh stack of Mirabella magazines, there lies an essay I wrote about sex, power and playing cards with Bill Clinton. I described how surprised I was to find that power is seductive, even for a feminist like me. I said I thought that the President had looked at my legs a little longer than was perfectly normal, and I described how that felt quite flattering, actually.
Nine in the morning, Monday, July 6. Fire Island. The phone rings. Media types desperate for a new Monica Lewinsky woke up to Mr. Tuesday, July 7, P. Recently, before my Mirabella piece came out, I ran into Maureen at a party, and she asked me if I had any story ideas for her. Guess I provided one! Now, I was in the Zeitgeist. The next day, my mother called from Chicago. Knowing you are going to be savaged by people like Howard Kurtz and Maureen Dowd is like having the flu.
All day long you have the sick feeling that you will vomit. When you finally do, you feel much better. The first symptoms actually came several days after Mirabella hit the street. The stuffy National Journal called, looking for a picture of me.
They were planning to quote from the Mirabella essay and apparently wanted to run a picture of me next to it to let readers gauge for themselves whether I was babe material. A day or two later, Mr. Kurtz rang. He admitted he had not, but planned to do so and would call me back.
