In October of that year, a young man named Gregory Smart was brutally gunned down in his own home.  Some of you might remember his widow, Pamela Smart.  She was a school teacher at the time…and to my delight, a top of the line media whore.  Within a few short hours of her husband’s death, the circus decamped from my front yard and migrated to hers. 

While it was certainly a tragic event, especially for Gregory Smart and his family, I could not help but be thankful.  My life was far from normal, but at least I didn’t have to dodge cameras and phone calls on a daily basis once Pam began catering to them.  The few requests that drifted in were half-hearted late comers and I could easily put them off…like the Maury Povich show. 

When their producer called, asking if I would like to do a segment, I simply told them I would get back to them.  I never did.

There was only one reporter that was dogged in her pursuit of me.  Nancy West.  She was a well-respected journalist with the Union Leader and I often enjoyed her columns.  Unlike some reporters, she was not pushy and left messages only once a week…which I ignored. 

There was only one way she was going to catch me and that was in the court room. 

Finally, the city of Manchester had scheduled a hearing for Danny regarding the misdemeanor charge of aggravated sexual assault.  Strictly a technicality, it was a forgone conclusion that they would either find him guilty or at the very least, use the charge to revoke his parole.  I wanted to attend…even if just to show my support for Danny.  On a whim, I asked Ronda if she would accompany me.

I spied Nancy West in the crowd during a bathroom break and noted her attention to both of us as we took our seats directly behind Danny in the courtroom.  It was easy to deduce from the way her attention bounced back and forth between my sister and me, that the journalist was having difficulty determining which one of us might be Danny’s fiancé.

This gave me an idea…

“It’s time to turn you loose on the press,” I whispered to my sister.  Quickly I gave her the details of what I wanted her to do and watched her smile slowly in anticipation. 

When the procedures concluded my sister and I said our farewells, hugged each other and to Nancy West’s chagrin went in opposite directions.  I saw the reporter hesitate for a moment and then having drawn the expected conclusion, she took the bait and went running after my 5’ 2” blonde-haired, blue-eyed, waif-like sibling.  With a smug grin, knowing that my sister would do everything to stall the journalist as requested, I slipped around the far side of the brick building and made my way home on foot.

But oddly…I was also pissed off at the fact that the reporter had fallen so easily for the ruse.  I knew why she had…it was what I’d been counting on after all…but it irked me nonetheless.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the phone began ringing. 

 “That was very clever of you…” said Nancy West in a begrudging tone of admiration.  I had to laugh.  She sounded so damn put out that it was difficult not to enjoy the moment.

“So you’ve had your fun,” she continued, “what will it take to get an interview with you?”

Resigned to breaking my silence eventually, I figured that I could do one hell of a lot worse than having this reporter in my camp.

“I’ll give you your interview if you’ll answer me these questions honestly...  Why did you choose my sister, Ronda over me?  Why couldn’t it have been me?”  Yes…I wanted to rub some salt into the wound…but the answer was important to me in another way as well.  I figured only a reporter with integrity would be able to answer that honestly.  Also, to be fair, I was still rather hurt by the fact that she hadn’t picked me.

“You know damn well why,” she began, “or you wouldn’t have thought to separate and force me to choose.”

I waited…

Finally she sighed and continued, “Okay…everyone assumes that Daniel Van de Bogart’s fiancé is just another victim in all of this.  Your sister…Ronda, was it?  She looks like everyone’s idea of a perfect victim.  Small…harmless…rather delicate looking.  There is no way anyone would look at you and think that you were anybody’s victim.  Satisfied?”

It was an honest answer and I respected it.  I’d long ago resigned myself to the fact that my height either intimidated people or gave me an air of being completely capable of handling myself.  Despite the engagement picture that had run in her very newspaper, the familial resemblance was enough to confuse Nancy West and send her running for the wrong woman based on a faulty assumption. 

“I’m satisfied,” I replied.  “But I’ll have to set some ground rules…understand?”

Nancy was so giddy with delight that she would be the first reporter to actually interview the fiancé that she would have agreed to anything.  I kept the rules simple…no printing anything I said without prior approval, if I said it was off the record…it better damn well be off the record.  Photos had to be cleared by me as well.  Just to sweeten the deal, I added that if she did right by me, I would give her what she really wanted…an interview with Danny.