I’m a private person.  I know it doesn’t seem that way since I’m telling you some rather private things in a very public way…but it’s the truth.  Twenty years ago, I just wanted to be left alone.  I didn’t want cameras in my face asking me “How do you feel?” 

Whenever I see a news reporter do that to somebody who is obviously in exquisite personal pain, I always wish that the person would have the balls to say, “How the FUCK do you think I FEEL?”  But they never do.  Perhaps it is shock or an eagerness to find compassion anywhere…I don’t know.  Perhaps there’s a small part of them that is thinking that this might be the fifteen minutes of fame they’ve been promised.

I never gave the media a chance to shove their microphones in my face and ask that question.  In my opinion it was simply none of their business how I was feeling. 

For the first few weeks they were merciless in their pursuit of the mysterious fiancé of Daniel Van de Bogart.  I was just as determined that they would never catch me.  It helped that nobody knew exactly what I looked like.  Occasionally, I even stood amongst them on the sidewalk beneath my second story apartment, craning my head up in the same fashion waiting for me to show my face.  I never did.

A slight cramp was put in my fun when a diligent employee of the Union Leader newspaper uncovered an engagement photo of Danny and me in their archives and had it reprinted on the front page.  On the bright side, it was probably the best picture of Danny ever printed during the entire ordeal.  Also, since it was just a head shot, I was able to overcome the unfortunate revelation by changing my hairstyle and opting for my glasses instead of the contacts I usually wore.  It gave no indication of height or build…so my anonymity wasn’t overly compromised.   

My apartment building could generously be described as a refurbished tenement.  I’m sure during the Victorian ages it was the height of posh with its newfangled gas lights and steam heat.  By the time I moved in though, the pipes were rather loud and the electrical outlets were in short supply.  Still, because of its design, it allowed for unusual routes of exit and entry that were indeterminate to those unfamiliar with the layout.  With the help of cooperative neighbors, I shimmied down ladders, squeezed out bathroom windows onto adjoining porches and made use of a shared door that connected my bedroom to an adjacent apartment to skip out the side entrance.  They may have thought I was trapped…but I wasn’t.

In order to gain access to my front door, the media was forced to travel a rather circuitous route.  The main door, at the south end of the building, led directly to a set of dangerously narrow stairs which wound up to each of the two floors above it.  At each flight there were two doors.  One led to a small three room apartment and the other led back outside to a long porch which ran the length of the middle apartment.  The porch ran past my kitchen window, past my front door, past the living room window and dead-ended at one of my bedroom windows.  Long before they’d even reached my front door, I’d hear them coming courtesy of the creaky door and the hollow thump-thump-thump their footsteps made on the porch. 

By the time they knocked, their cameras poised upon shoulders waiting for me to unwittingly open the door so they could blind me with their bright lights while thrusting the microphone into my shocked face, I was safely tucked in my darkened bedroom watching them. 

*Knock, knock*

“Who’s there?”

They’d whisper to each other excitedly.  Somebody is home!  Maybe…THE FIANCE!

“We’d like to speak to Laurie…”

“Are you a reporter?”

“Well..uh…yes.  But I just have a few questions.  Don’t you want the world to hear your side of things?”

“No.”

I’d giggle softly, muffling my laughter with a fist because it was actually a lot of fun teasing them.

“Do you have a camera?”

“Yes we do.  Does that bother you?”

“Yes…no cameras.”

“Okay…well, I’ll tell the cameraman to leave…okay?

“Okay.”

To my utter delight, the cameraman actually walked away a few feet, rather loudly, and then scurried back on tip-toe to the front door.

“The cameraman is gone now.  Can we talk to you?”

“No.”

The press never managed to accost visitors of mine either.  By the time it became apparent that somebody was entering my apartment, it was too late for them to catch up.  Often they would sit their vigil on the sidewalk, drinking coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts paper cups, hoping to catch the visitor in a return trip…but they never did.  I never allowed any guests to exit the building the same way they entered.  I’m sure it must have puzzled the media endlessly that people arrived…but never seemed to leave.

My sister, Ronda, arrived one evening in such a fashion.  Given that the two of us were never very close, it did not surprise me that she seemed to lust after the spotlight and hoped that one day she might be caught in the camera’s lens with a microphone thrust in her face asking how she felt. 

“I don’t understand why you won’t talk to them,” Ronda said as I pulled her away from the windows.  “They’re just sitting out there patiently.  They aren’t even bothering you at all…so why are you so against them?”

She didn’t understand that this wasn’t a game…and that these people didn’t really care.  If Ronda was lucky, she’d simply come across as a fool and at worse...she could open her mouth, become too chatty and say something that could be used against Danny at a future date. 

It wasn’t that I wanted to protect Danny…but conversely, I didn’t want to hurt him either.  If he was innocent then the facts would speak for themselves.  But if he was guilty, I didn’t want to be the instrument of his freedom. 

“Here,” I said, “let me show you something.  Obviously you want something you can share with your friends so I’ll give you that much.  Just shut up and do what I tell you…okay?”

Ronda was too curious not to go along with what I had planned and without argument she fell to the floor as we army-crawled together to the bedroom.  Facing the street and slightly overhanging the sidewalk below was a three sided, deep bay window and this was our destination.  At the moment, all three windows were covered completely, from ceiling to floor, with simple shades to shield it from the prying eyes below.  From our semi-flattened position on the carpet, I reached up and snagged the corner of the closest one. 

“Okay…on the count of three,” I whispered, “…and whatever you do…keep your head down.  Ready?  One….Two….Three!!!”

On the third count, I gave a sharp tug to the corner of the shade and sent it flying upward with a loud snap.  Bam!  A dozen bright white lights flared into life and lit up the room from below like a football stadium at a night game.  Squinting, in the glare, I looked at my sister. 

“Not so bad, huh?”

And with that, the two of us gave way to a fit of the giggles, clenching our stomachs as we rolled on the floor in laughter.

As we sat companionably sipping coffee at my kitchen table afterward, I made a decision not to fault my sibling for her rather cold-blooded enthusiasm toward my predicament.  There might come a day when I might need her to do something for me….and I couldn’t afford to alienate anybody at this point.  She could easily, just to spite me, run to the reporters and open her big mouth.  I’d learned growing up that Ronda was pretty much capable of doing anything in her own self-interest.

That might sound rather harsh…but it’s simply the truth.  It doesn’t mean I love her less, it just means that I know her well.

Ronda needed a job….a position on my team and so I gave her one. 

“I know that you want to talk to the press,” I said as gently as I could, “but now is not the time.  Just trust me on this okay?  I know you want to go down there right now and give them a large piece of your mind because you are naturally protective of people that you love…and I appreciate that about you.  But I’m saving you for something else…and when that time comes, you’ll know because I’ll tell you and then you’ll be my secret weapon.  I need you to do that for me.  Please?”

Of course…it was all bullshit.  I had no plans to use Ronda as a secret weapon for anything.  I was simply trying to defuse a potentially embarrassing situation.  It was supremely ironic, therefore, when Ronda ended up being just that.