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Monica Takes Manhattan

But it's no use, as her receiving line is endless. There are people who want to snap her picture ("I'm a photographer, and it would be great to have in my book") and people who eagerly press their business cards in her hand ("I'm a highly in-demand personal shopper, and I'd love to work with your bags"). Mira Sorvino says hi, Ralph Destino Jr. gives her a peck on the cheek, and then the journalists approach, pens in hand, only to hear: "I'm sorry, I'm not doing any press tonight."

But sometimes there can be too much of a good thing. Suddenly, Monica is rushed by two very drunk blonde women in their thirties, who tug at the bottom of her blazer and scream, "Omigod, omigod, omigod! We love you so much! We would have done the same thing in three seconds flat. You're amaaazing!"

Monica politely extricates herself and walks away, a little shaken.

Much calmer is a recent afternoon she and Juli spend at the Museum of Modern Art with Monica's aunt Debra Finerman, a smiley former journalist whom Monica considers her best friend. Through the many floors of moma they go, taking in the "Collection Highlights" alongside art students and women with Channel 13 bags and loads of tourists, none of whom notice Monica -- they're all looking at the art, after all.

Here is a Van Gogh. "Now, there's someone else who got bad press," laughs Debra. Here is a Gauguin. "I love this," says Monica, transfixed. Here is an all-blue Yves Klein. "I made something like that in nursery school," snickers Monica. And here is a Warhol Campbell's soup can bearing the label pepper pot. "Oh!" says Monica, stopping short in her ankle-high black boots. "I didn't know that pepperpot was a real word."

We take a break in the museum café, where Juli and Monica order sausages -- Juli's on the Atkins diet, and Monica's giving it a shot. "Guess who's going to be on TV tonight?" Juli asks between bites.

"Who?" asks Debra.

Monica frowns.

"Monica!" declares Juli. "She's going to be on E.T., 'cause she's an Internet entrepreneur!"

"Wow, sweetie," says Debra, touching Monica's hand. "Now, that's terrific!"

Monica looks at the floor.

After the snack, we head up to the sculpture exhibit. There's a big white cube by Tom Friedman on the floor. It has a plastic fly on the top. Laughing, Monica pretends to try to blow it off. "Darn!"

"Whoa!" says a guard, pointing at a sign: "The fly is part of the work. Please do not try to disturb it."

We all giggle and move on, and no one gives this incident a second thought -- I certainly didn't until I read a story a week or so later in a downtown paper, The Villager, by someone who had apparently followed us around all day. It was then picked up by the New York Post's "Page Six": "Lots of eyes were on Monica Lewinsky the other day as she made the rounds at moma. And Monica didn't disappoint. When she noticed some dust on a sculpture and blew it off, one of the guards barked at her. Reports the weekly Villager, 'I wonder why she would blow on anything in public, given, well, you know.' "

It was a taste of what it must be like to go through life as Monica Lewinsky.