up immediately!
“I told him, man, this is serious. It’s pretty clear he’s not really on your side. It was hard to see my buddy get put through this.”
On Thanksgiving morning, November 26 th , the Salahis awoke in a sleep-deprived stupor. Neither one has very regular sleeping habits, and they rarely sleep at all on the nights before they travel. But this day they weren’t going anywhere. Even though it was Thanksgiving Day, the narrow dusty road outside their home was clogged with reporters and satellite trucks. A friend phoned to tell them there was a similar scene outside the gates of Oasis Vineyards, 15 miles away. On a day when families traditionally gather to visit, break bread and give thanks, Michaele and Tareq Salahi would spend the day hunkered down, peaking through the front window blinds and trying to cope with their strange new reality. Dinner consisted of what was in the cupboard, Tareq’s favorite canned chili or Spaghetti-O’s, vestiges of his boyhood meals. Michaele would make do with bowls of her sugary breakfast cereal.
Trying to go out to go grocery shopping the next few days would be out of the question.
By Sunday, November 29 th , Michaele was suffering from a bad case of cabin fever. She had spoken to her mother on the telephone, of course, but on this day she wanted to be with her mom. “I just needed to see her, I was feeling so sick and beaten down, I just thought a hug would help so much,” Michael recalled. “It was really stupid of me to go out looking back on it now. I just didn’t understand what was happening to my life.” There were still so many reporters camped outside their home, Michaele called the Warren County, Virginia Sheriff’s Office for help in clearing her driveway and holding the media back so she could leave.
Michaele turned her car toward Interstate 66, the road to Fairfax where Rosemary Holt lived, and for a moment she remembers she felt she could breathe. She used her cell phone to call her friend Jason Hoskinson, from the David Yurman jewelry store, and told him she’d been worrying about not returning the pieces he’d loaned her to wear to the White House.
“I told her I completely understood her situation and she shouldn’t worry about it. We were planning to see each other early the next week anyway.”
Suddenly, Michaele realized she was being closely followed by a car coming up on her side dangerously fast. She told Jason, “There are two men in a car next to me and one is pointing a camera at me! I’m going, like, 70 miles an hour!” She told Jason she had to hang up to call her husband. As Jason was telling her to call the police instead, the line went dead. Tareq answered his phone to hear his wife’s frantic breathless description of what was happening. And then she spotted a second paparazzi car on her tail—maybe even a third one, she wasn’t sure. Tareq firmly instructed her to call 911 immediately and tell them who she was, where she was and what was happening. Still traveling at high speed, hoping to lose those in pursuit, Michaele dialed 911 but as she fumbled with the phone, her wheels caught the side of the shoulder and her white Audi was pulled into the sunken, V-shaped median divider! She held firmly onto the wheel as she careened uncontrollably down the middle of the Interstate, sometimes at such an awkward angle the car nearly flipped over.
“The 911 Operator stayed on the phone with me the whole time and told me what to do. I saw two police cars go after the paparazzi guys and 911 told me to get off at Exit 28.” As she slowly exited, still shaking from the event, Michaele says she saw the two police cars had boxed in the car with the two occupants.
A young officer motioned to her to pull ahead and park and said to her, “Why are you out? It isn’t safe with these guys all over.” She explained her destination and the deputy said they would see she got to her mother’s house safely.
Michaele pulled back onto
“I told him, man, this is serious. It’s pretty clear he’s not really on your side. It was hard to see my buddy get put through this.”
On Thanksgiving morning, November 26 th , the Salahis awoke in a sleep-deprived stupor. Neither one has very regular sleeping habits, and they rarely sleep at all on the nights before they travel. But this day they weren’t going anywhere. Even though it was Thanksgiving Day, the narrow dusty road outside their home was clogged with reporters and satellite trucks. A friend phoned to tell them there was a similar scene outside the gates of Oasis Vineyards, 15 miles away. On a day when families traditionally gather to visit, break bread and give thanks, Michaele and Tareq Salahi would spend the day hunkered down, peaking through the front window blinds and trying to cope with their strange new reality. Dinner consisted of what was in the cupboard, Tareq’s favorite canned chili or Spaghetti-O’s, vestiges of his boyhood meals. Michaele would make do with bowls of her sugary breakfast cereal.
Trying to go out to go grocery shopping the next few days would be out of the question.
By Sunday, November 29 th , Michaele was suffering from a bad case of cabin fever. She had spoken to her mother on the telephone, of course, but on this day she wanted to be with her mom. “I just needed to see her, I was feeling so sick and beaten down, I just thought a hug would help so much,” Michael recalled. “It was really stupid of me to go out looking back on it now. I just didn’t understand what was happening to my life.” There were still so many reporters camped outside their home, Michaele called the Warren County, Virginia Sheriff’s Office for help in clearing her driveway and holding the media back so she could leave.
Michaele turned her car toward Interstate 66, the road to Fairfax where Rosemary Holt lived, and for a moment she remembers she felt she could breathe. She used her cell phone to call her friend Jason Hoskinson, from the David Yurman jewelry store, and told him she’d been worrying about not returning the pieces he’d loaned her to wear to the White House.
“I told her I completely understood her situation and she shouldn’t worry about it. We were planning to see each other early the next week anyway.”
Suddenly, Michaele realized she was being closely followed by a car coming up on her side dangerously fast. She told Jason, “There are two men in a car next to me and one is pointing a camera at me! I’m going, like, 70 miles an hour!” She told Jason she had to hang up to call her husband. As Jason was telling her to call the police instead, the line went dead. Tareq answered his phone to hear his wife’s frantic breathless description of what was happening. And then she spotted a second paparazzi car on her tail—maybe even a third one, she wasn’t sure. Tareq firmly instructed her to call 911 immediately and tell them who she was, where she was and what was happening. Still traveling at high speed, hoping to lose those in pursuit, Michaele dialed 911 but as she fumbled with the phone, her wheels caught the side of the shoulder and her white Audi was pulled into the sunken, V-shaped median divider! She held firmly onto the wheel as she careened uncontrollably down the middle of the Interstate, sometimes at such an awkward angle the car nearly flipped over.
“The 911 Operator stayed on the phone with me the whole time and told me what to do. I saw two police cars go after the paparazzi guys and 911 told me to get off at Exit 28.” As she slowly exited, still shaking from the event, Michaele says she saw the two police cars had boxed in the car with the two occupants.
A young officer motioned to her to pull ahead and park and said to her, “Why are you out? It isn’t safe with these guys all over.” She explained her destination and the deputy said they would see she got to her mother’s house safely.
Michaele pulled back onto
Similar Books
