Though she's often motherly and affable, Juli can be a hard-ass of the first degree when it comes to managing Monica's publicity. When Ed Koch and Al D'Amato wanted to be photographed next to Monica at a recent party, Juli cried: "She doesn't get photographed next to politicians!" On her recommendation, Monica will no longer speak to the press about her years at the White House, the Clintons, or Linda Tripp, as she did during the period that Juli refers to as "B.J.," Before Juli. All that is being saved for the HBO special, which Juli played a key role in negotiating and for which Monica will receive an undisclosed sum.

Monica herself is smarter about the media than you'd think. She reads a lot of her own press, has opinions on the merits of every journalist who covered her trials, and knows enough to parry difficult questions with the rejoinder "This is supposed to be about my life in New York." She's even kept clips from various magazine articles, like her controversial "Stars and Stripes" spread in Vanity Fair: "Never know if your grandkids might want them," she says with a look between a grimace and a grin.

In fact, it took an hour of negotiations to wrestle an answer out of her about the Clintons' moving to New York. Finally, she agreed to say, "I'm not happy about them moving here, but I think the city's big enough for the two of us." Two?

There are times, of course, when past slights are very much on Monica's mind. After a long, rainy day of schlepping around the garment district and losing our Town Car -- "God," complains Monica, "how hard is it to just park somewhere and say, 'I'm on the corner of bloop-de-bloop and bloop-de-bloop'?" -- we jump in a cab as Monica finishes a cell-phone call with her best friend from Washington, D.C.

"So," she tells Juli in a loud whisper, "I just heard that there's going to be this huge party for everyone who was ever on staff there. I'm like, 'Hel-looo, where's my invitation? Where are you hiding it? Oh, is it because -- ' "

"Want me to put that in the paper?" Juli says. "I could call George Rush? Or the W.H." -- that's code for the White House -- "and say I need to add you at the last minute. Did you tell her to say hi for you?"

"I was like, 'Say hi to all my old friends," jokes Monica.

Juli laughs. "When she says good-bye, she should say, 'Monica says hel-looo.' "

"Monica says hey," says Monica, making the hey short and sweet.

"That's it: 'Monica says hey,' " says Juli. "That's good."

Monica looks out the window and ponders it all.

Most of the time, though, Monica displays surprisingly little bitterness about her past and its sometimes unfortunate aftermath. Indeed, she's usually focused on being very, very nice. Monica overcompensates for every kindness shown to her, overtipping a nice cabdriver or complimenting a friendly waitress on her "cute blouse."

She tries to stay "peaceful" by starting every morning at her cozy local café, a place with the menu on chalkboards and Melissa Etheridge on the stereo. And near the coffeepots, a Magic Markered sign: karma is a boomerang. Here Monica is a beloved member of the "Breakfast Club," a pack of locals who meet every morning at eight for friendly conversation before work. With this clique, Monica attends neighborhood Little League games to root for the café-sponsored team. She visited the owner's Lab in the kennel while he was away. She even sewed a patchwork sham for one of the café's "ugly" heat pipes.

Though the wilder Monica -- the one who snapped her thong at the president, had a fling with not only her high-school teacher but also his brother, and confides to me that she once considered getting a rose tattoo on her "tushie" -- seems to have been left somewhere on the way to the grand jury, even now she sometimes revels in her ability to be just a little naughty. Does she feel like she got screwed? "Not in a good way!" Was she ever psyched to meet a famous person? "Well, there was this one time." When a waiter reminds her coyly to be a good girl, she wisecracks, "I have been for a few years now."

"You go, girl!" he says.

This is not to say, however, that there aren't times when Monica can feel blue, frantic, not nice at all, or just blah, although the only time I saw her truly angry was when I asked about the whereabouts of the infamous dress, the one she told Barbara Walters she'd burn if she ever got it back. "I can't even believe you would even ask me that!" she glowered. (The dress is currently in the possession of the independent counsel, who, Monica says later, can have it forever.)

What she lacks in bile, though, she makes up for with a prodigious moodiness, swinging up and down in the space of an afternoon and sometimes seeming like a different person from one day to the next. Things would set her off, and it wasn't always clear what they were or how to bring her back to reality -- except that for Monica, maybe reality, even her new glamorous one, wasn't always such a great place to be.

This was particularly striking one night at Il Cantinori. When we set out, Monica seemed in good spirits, twirling around in a new green fur jacket and commenting on the "hotties" in her elevator. But once at the restaurant, she saw a gray-bobbed woman in her fifties staring at her from a few tables over. At first she tried to look away, but the woman kept staring, as if taking in a circus act; even as Monica reddened and fidgeted, she wouldn't stop. Finally, Monica made a face like a snarling dog and growled, "Arrr!" Then she covered her face with her hands and didn't speak for ten minutes.

At a party for the new society monthly Gotham at Harry Cipriani last week, Monica is in better spirits. With a flower in her hair and a sequined outfit that shows off a flesh-colored bustier bought specially for the occasion, she must feel like Cinderella at the ball. But to the dozens of photographers who snap to attention as she walks down the red carpet, she's just the evening's biggest "get." "You look fabulous, Monica!" they shout as she turns this way and that for the cameras. "How are the bags, Monica? No, Monica, don't go!"

"So, Monica," asks a highly bejeweled party guest, "how are those bags?"

"Good, thanks," Monica says cheerily.

"My friend just loves them," the guest continues, gesturing at her overtanned 40-year-old companion, who stares at Monica with a greedy grin. "This is Fred. He's a big real-estate tycoon."

"Great!" says Monica, turning away.