(5 of 5)
Lewis' book caused little buzz in the opera world, but it did pique the interest of R. Peter Straus, an opera buff who met Lewis at one of her book signings in New York's Westchester County. Straus, 74, the widower of New York Times clan member Ellen Sulzberger Straus, soon began dating Lewis. They are now engaged. "She's a very good friend, and I love her very much," he told TIME last week. There are other wrinkles. Straus is also a close family friend of Vernon Jordan's. "I feel like I've known Vernon forever," he says, "and I honestly cannot identify when and where we first met." But, Straus says, "I have not had any conversation with Vernon Jordan ever about Monica Lewinsky or Marcia Lewis."
Lewis, however, pops up briefly in her daughter's conversations on Linda Tripp's notorious audiotapes. As Lewinsky and Tripp discuss a plan to have Tripp fake a foot injury to avoid a scheduled deposition, Lewinsky gets a call on her other line from her mother, during which she allegedly tells Lewis of the ruse. Returning to Tripp, Lewinsky reports, "She said, 'Brilliant.'"
Lewinsky's onetime surrogate mom Laraine Dave says she hasn't talked to Monica since December 1996. She defends the young woman she took into her home. She believes that "Monica had an obsessive-compulsive personality. The way she works her way into your life, yes. She really likes people to accept her." But, Dave says, "she's very direct, very sincere, very forthright. I don't think Monica embellishes at all. She loved to get into people's minds, to understand why people do what they do." And she had a kind of vision too. Says Dave: "She was interested in the mystic arts, the higher mind, karma, destiny." Now she's mired in history.
--Reported by Melissa August, John Cloud, Sally B. Donnelly and Adam Zagorin/Washington, Charlotte Faltermayer and Andrea Sachs/New York, Cathy Booth/Los Angeles and Patrick E. Cole/Portland