Nancy Shevell

Nancy Shevell beamed for hundreds of cameras in London's Leicester Square, a green silk jacket on one arm and Paul McCartney on the other. The 49-year-old trucking heiress dazzled on the red carpet at a movie premiere with the ex-Beatle, her boyfriend of 18 months. Two days later, Shevell shielded herself behind a colleague, turning away from cameras recording a Metropolitan Transportation Authority meeting where she cast a vote to raise city subway fares 25 percent.

Few who have seen Shevell photographed in Israel, Antigua and at the Grammy Awards with McCartney know of her other life as an executive at a New Jersey trucking company and board member of the nation's largest mass transit agency. But her public and behind-the-scene personas have collided more and more since the socialite began seeing McCartney in the Hamptons in late 2007.

Since January 2008, Shevell has missed four full board meetings, more than any voting member, according to MTA meeting minutes reviewed by The Associated Press. She attended one Finance Committee meeting in the past year, and has 26 absences total, according to the agency's records. Shevell skipped an MTA committee meeting approving a controversial fare hike the day she walked the red carpet in London. Since early 2008, the unpaid appointee has the worst attendance of any voting board member, sometimes missing meetings to travel around the world with McCartney.