Poor Melania Trump. All she wanted was to marry a millionaire and settle down to an untroubled existence in a gold-leafed penthouse. Once she’d produced the requisite heir—the double-barreled Barron, whose exhaustion on election night mirrored the country’s—she’d fulfilled her part of the marital contract. Post-Barron, Melania’s sole task was organizing the occasional party at Mar-A-Lago and getting into the society pages with enough frequency to assuage her husband’s ego. Life was supposed to be easy, a couture bubble that insulated her from all unpleasantness: a reward of sorts for posing artfully nude in “fashion” photos that still circulate on the internet. Inconvenient thing, the internet, as Mel’s husband has discovered. His tweets from four years ago urged people to protest the Obama re-election as a “travesty.” The current protests, against his own victory, he tweets as “unfair.” Remember, Melania, nothing ever dies on the internet.
Dear Melania, when you visited the White House last week, did you mean to wear an outfit that seemed so funereal? It is truly a gracious first-lady-in-waiting who chooses her ensemble to reflect the mood of more than half the country; I thank you on their behalf. Or perhaps you’re mourning the loss of your wealthy anonymity, those halcyon days when you could zip off to fashion shows or long lunches or – well, I am not exactly sure what you’ve been doing for the last eleven years, but whatever it was, I’m afraid those days are over.
I’m sure you’re going to do fine as First Lady, Melania. The whirling panic that many of us saw in your eyes on election night and then when you visited Michelle Obama in the White House was probably just a momentary thing. I know that people are pressing you with questions about “issues” and “security” and “decisions,” but surely you will appoint people whose job it is to wrangle with such things, while you determine the right outfits for the Inauguration. Two small pieces of advice, if I may: I’d avoid a pussy-bow blouse for the inauguration ceremony. And you might want to practice a slightly different photo-op look. I’m not sure that “smoldering cat-eye pout” is quite what people expect for FLOTUS face. But hey, you can work that out with your transition team.
I know it’s been a rough ride, Mel, from that first escalator descent to lobby of the Trump Tower Mall, where The Donald declared himself a candidate for the Presidency. That’s why you’ve insisted that you and Donny are just plain folks, never mind that 125-room residence in Florida or the triplex apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. You keep telling us you’re just a regular gal, content to be a full-time mother to The Bar(r)on.
Yes, there are some women who complain that they’d like to follow in your Laboutin footsteps and be stay-at-home-moms, but they can’t afford not to work. They shouldn’t worry, right? I know that you and Donny feel their pain. You’re going to fix that situation straightaway with a really big plan, a super plan. Any day now, a huge plan is going to be announced. Laboutins for everyone, that’s for sure.
On the other hand, maybe Melania doesn’t need our compassion. As she told Anderson Cooper last month on CNN, she’s tough. She doesn’t care that people might compare her to the outgoing First Lady, who did things like graduate from Harvard Law School and then juggle a full-time career with full-time parenting, without a single pair of Laboutins to her name. Melania is just fine with her unfinished university degree and her work as a catalog model, and her desire to stop cyberbullying.
In fact, the cyberbullying and the pussy-bow makes me wonder if this FLOTUS reluctantus doesn’t have a sneaky little sense of humor, a Chanel-scented sense of irony: both bow and bullying highlight some egregious mistakes made by The Donald.
Good luck, Melania. FLOTUS is a tough job, and frequently a thankless one. Look at it this way: no matter how bad it gets, you can plan on returning to your Manhattan penthouse in about four years.
