Interview: Monica Lewinsky Up Close

"Yoo-hoo!" Monica Lewinsky sweeps into her stepfather's penthouse apartment for her first American print interview since the scandal began. Removing the hat and sunglasses she wears by way of disguise, she complains of a cold and jet lag (the night before, she signed the first copy of Monica's Story, her tell-almost-all book, in midair while flying from Los Angeles to New York City). As Monica huddles for a moment with her team of media and legal advisers, her mother Marcia Lewis brings in coffee and shows two visitors around the tidy 34th-floor apartment, with its panoramic views of Manhattan and Central Park. "It sounds corny," says Lewis, "but it's peaceful up here. We're above the fray."

Monica has been doing her part to keep the fray going. She exploded back onto the scene last week to promote her book, the saga of an insecure and overweight child of a broken Beverly Hills home whose need for love and attention led her to seduce a President. In her two-hour appearance on ABC, she came off as sad and, she admits, often silly ("I smiled too much... I was a little too candid"), a woman-child who couldn't keep quiet during or after her affair with Bill Clinton. Speaking to TIME, she was even tougher and more unbowed. She says she knows what she did was wrong and that most Americans would like her to be more contrite. But she insists that her feelings of remorse are no better than mixed. "I'm not going to pretend that it was always about something bigger than me," she says. "Because for me, it wasn't."

Even after a year of therapy and a lifetime of tears, there are plenty of colors Monica still can't see. Her affair with Clinton did not interfere with official business because they were "together mostly on the weekends." Even her lack of discretion is a relative thing. "For me, only telling 10 people was being pretty discreet." Monica knows her attitude infuriates people but says there isn't much she can do about that. As for the Creep, she says she's over him, doesn't want to speak with him, wouldn't believe him if she did. "He'll tell you what you want to hear."

That, at least, sounds like progress. But what do you do after you've starred in a yearlong presidential soap? Monica will spend the next few weeks overseas, waiting for things to cool down at home. She is worried about finding a job, a husband, even new friends. Her life is "cuckoo," she says; but she promises she's getting over it. When people stare now, she just tells herself they're staring because her hair is blue. "Denial," she says, "is underrated."

TIME: You said your affair with Clinton was nobody's business, that it didn't affect the public. Do you really think that?

Monica Lewinsky: I do. I do. But just because I think it was none of their business doesn't mean I don't think it was wrong. It was wrong, but it was a private wrong. And maybe when I'm older, I might look back on it and see where I have different responsibilities. But I think at my age, then and now, being able to see the complete picture--I don't think that is really possible. It didn't affect his job; it didn't affect my job; we were together mostly on the weekends, when I was not supposed to be working and he was not really supposed to be working. It was kept very private, in that sense. Yes, I confided in private to my friends, but that's different from publicly telling your story, which I never would have done.