How It Feels to Be a Neighbor of Paula Jones

If you are The Woman Who Sued The President, everybody knows your name: Paula Jones. Live in the same Long Beach building? Automatically, a title is bestowed upon you: Paula Jones’ Neighbor.

In the eyes of the world, you have become a somebody. People magazine calls, television reporters put their mikes in your face. You field questions from reporters perched outside your building’s security gate. You learn to stop grabbing a bathrobe when you see photographers with large zoom lenses staked out on the beach; their cameras, which seem to peer into your oceanfront condo, are really prying into Jones’.

“It’s a nuisance,” said Helen Schenk. “When Paula Jones gets her $700,000, I hope to hell she buys a house.”

That would be the $700,000 that Jones is seeking in damages in her lawsuit, which alleges that Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, propositioned her in a Little Rock, Ark., hotel in May 1991. She has said she filed the lawsuit after Clinton declined to apologize. Last week, the Supreme Court heard Clinton’s lawyers’ arguments that the lawsuit should be delayed until the end of his second term.

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Amid a crescendo of news coverage, Jones and her husband, Steve, moved to the one-bedroom condominium three years ago. Most of her neighbors in the 44-unit complex found out about the celebrity in their midst from hovering reporters.

Suddenly, the nondescript beige stucco building was transformed into The Place Where Paula Lives.

By now, the celebrity tenant’s name is recognized by 90% of all Americans, according to surveys by Newsweek.

“We haven’t had Gray Line tourist buses coming here yet, calling out, ‘On your right, there’s the house of Paula Jones,’ ” said neighbor Phil Geer.

Schenk’s resentment of her neighbor didn’t prevent her from introducing her family to Jones. One day as Jones wheeled her bike out of the building, Schenk turned to her daughter and grandchildren and said: “Family, meet Paula Jones.”

Jones, mortified, looked like she wanted to disappear and didn’t say a word, Schenk recalled. “It’s nothing new for her to be a spectacle,” Schenk said.

To the public, Schenk and other residents’ proximity gives them possible insight about a case casting a shadow on President Clinton. Folks like to pester them with questions: Is Jones pretty? Does she seem like the kind of woman who might induce a powerful politician to drop his trousers? Has she ever described the distinguishing feature she allegedly spied on Clinton’s private parts?

Residents have also come up with their own questions about the case: How does Jones have enough money to drive a Mercedes when her husband works at an airlines service counter? And after three years in California, why does the Mercedes still have Arkansas license plates?

(Jones did not answer her door on the day a reporter visited the complex, and rarely makes public statements at her home.)

Some neighbors revel in their newfound renown. “I always brag about it,” said Shannon Huston, a Disneyland ride operator. “I tell people, ‘Paula Jones lives five floors below me.’ ”

But Huston--who moved in with her father a month ago--hasn’t actually seen Jones. To Huston’s chagrin, her dad tells her when he has spotted Jones in the laundry room, garage or lounging poolside with her two young sons.

Others, like Donald Richmond, try to avoid mentioning in social settings that Jones is a neighbor. “Once in a while I slip and say she lives in the complex, but when people start asking personal questions, I just turn right off,” said the electronics business consultant.

When Richmond sees his famous neighbor leaving with her bike, he holds open the door. He’s not interested in learning more about potentially presidential secrets. “She’s a person; they’re a family. I treat them as such.”

For many neighbors, the mere fact that they now live near someone in the spotlight has spurred their interest in the case. Joseph Desisto, a retired medical administrator, purchased a copy of Penthouse when the magazine ran photographs of a scantily-clad Jones taken by a former boyfriend. It’s a memento he intends to pass on to his grandson.

“If this was a man or woman in your condo, you’d buy it too,” said Desisto, who added that his interest has had no effect on his neighborliness--when he saw Jones moving in, he offered to help with boxes.

Warren Mittelholz--a retired draftsman for Long Beach’s city oil properties department--often greets Jones at the mailboxes. But to his relief, the chitchat doesn’t extend further. “It’d be hard to have a conversation with her--what would you say?” Mittelholz said.

Of all the neighbors, it is Joy and Phil Geer who feel burned by Jones’ celebrity. When Jones’ baby was born, Joy Geer said, she gave a crib toy to the infant and a Big Brother badge to the couple’s older son. She volunteered to baby-sit.

Last month, a New York Daily News reporter buttonholed the retired couple, asking questions about their famous neighbor. After the News story ran, an irate Jones called Phil Geer, complaining that the Geers had characterized her husband as “controlling” and had told a reporter the names of Jones’ children. She demanded that the Geers apologize to her and her husband, Phil Geer said.

“I told her, ‘We didn’t mean you any harm,’ ” said Phil Geer, clearly baffled by the response.

Joy Geer, a retired airline service representative, said: “All I meant was that her husband . . . was the one who spoke. . . . I should never have talked to that reporter.”

Will she tell Jones that she is sorry? No, not after the tongue-lashing that Paula Jones gave Phil Geer, said Joy Geer, determinedly.

So once again, Paula Jones awaits an apology.