Linda and Monica: Girl Talk

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If the Linda Tripp tapes were a novelist's manuscript instead of Ken Starr's exhibit 1038Q, HarperCollins would already be talking a six-figure advance and movie deal. Strap a tape recorder to the thigh of your average career federal bureaucrat and you're not likely to get the interminable and somehow strangely compelling conversation that emerges from these tapes. Some excerpts:


DID IT MEAN ANYTHING TO THE BIG CREEP?

"You know what's sad?" said Monica. "It's just I'm leaving, and there is nothing I gained from this experience. He -- his behavior in the past few months has really -- really just eroded any -- any notion I ever had of -- like a pleasant memory, you know."

"Well," said Linda, "time has a real strange way of coloring things different ways, so maybe in a -- in a few years, you'll see this differently. And it also depends on whether you continue to have any kind of relationship with him down the road."

"Which I doubt," said Monica.

"You know. A friendship, a romantic -- who knows?" continued Linda. "I mean, all of that will play into how your memory serves you."

"I just wish I could do something -- I wish I could just do something that would make him go, 'Gee, I was stupid,' you know?" said Monica. "Like, 'Boy, it was really dumb to let her go' -- or something."

"Mm-hmm."

"You know what I mean?"

"Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm."

Special Report

DIFFERENT STROKES

"I did see the cutest boy in the elevator yesterday," said Monica.

"Oh, where?" asked Linda.

"At Bloomingdale's," replied Monica. "He was so cute."

"See?" said Linda. "So much a bigger pool there."

"It is," agreed Monica. "I like -- you know, I like guys who have -- he had a big scar on his forehead."

"Mm-hmmm."

"And I like that."

"Monica --"

"I do," said Monica. "I just -- I like somebody who looks a little different -- you know what I mean?"

"With a scar?" asked Linda.

"Well, yeah."

"Pfft."

"No, but he was nice looking."

"Well," said Linda, "I think we can safely agree that we don't agree on men."

NEVER MIND THAT, WHAT WILL NANA THINK?

"I just wish I didn't have all this emotional stuff," sighed Monica.

"I wish I could be like him."

"Oh, I'm so glad you're not," said Linda.

"I guarantee you," said Monica, "he has not gone through one ounce of pain having to do with me in the past six, seven months. He just -- threw it all away, you know?"

"I mean, I believe things happen for a reason," said Linda.

"Although I have yet to figure out why this happened."

"I can't figure it out," Monica said. "Nothing really good has come of it."

"Maybe," suggested Linda, "it's so that you can tell your grandchildren you had an affair with the you-know-what of the you-know-what."

"I don't think so," said Monica. "What if your grandma right now told you she had an affair with the president? How vastly would that change your grandma's life?"

WILL YOU PLEASE CHEAT ON YOUR WIFE WITH WOMEN A LITTLE OLDER THAN YOU DAUGHTER?

"The other thing is, do you want to go to one of those Christmas parties [at the White House]?" Linda asked.

"I don't know," said Monica.

"Because," Linda continued, "you could probably work an invitation, at the very least."

"Well, you'd think a lot of things at the very least, but - uh -"

"I mean," Linda broke in, "you could take your mom."

"My mom would vomit if she saw him."

"I know."

"I think she'd smack him."

"I know."

"Yeah."

"It would freak him out, wouldn't it?"

"I saw him on like Sunday," Monica said, "and then I said to him, I said, 'Oh, look for me at the arrival ceremony on blah, blah, blah. My mom and my aunt are coming.' "

"But he didn't know which was which," Linda said.

"No, but he, you know, he said, 'I saw them. They're cute.' And I said, 'Shut up.' Not that cute. Like, not cuter than me."

Linda laughed. "I wonder what he was thinking?"

"How he could do them, too."

THE WHITE HOUSE LEARNS FROM ITS MISTAKES

"Well, I guess it's possible she passed the card that you sent in," Linda said. "Who signs for that card, by the way?"

"What do you mean?" Monica asked.

"Well, whenever you courier stuff, who signs for it?"

"The intern."

"Is she" -- Linda hesitated -- "she doesn't know about you."

"No."

"All right. I just get worried."

"Well, I know," Monica said.

"I wonder if she's a Nancy person."

"No," Monica said. "It's Betty's intern, and I think it's a boy."

"It's a boy?"

"I think so," Monica said. "Uh - they're finally getting smart."

BUT MONICA'S STILL IN THE DARK

"You know what's really weird?" Monica suddenly asked. "I keep hearing these double clicks."

"That's my gum," Linda replied.

"Oh, OK."