Free, Melania by Kate Bennett

Author:Kate Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

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Despite the pounding she took in the press for staying in New York City for the five months from inauguration until Barron finished his year at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory in Manhattan, Melania has told those close to her she never even considered not doing it. Barron was and continues to be her first priority, and, whether the public liked it or not, she intended to keep it that way. She also admitted the plan had a bit of reverse psychology to it, something she smartly gamed out ahead of the move. As weekend visits to the White House increased through late winter, and as her son got more acquainted with the actual cool stuff about the place—the pool, the bowling alley, the movie theater, the Secret Service guys with their gear and their toys—Barron was more comfortable with the idea. By the time the cherry blossoms were on the trees in D.C. and before his school year in New York was out, he was ready. “Melania is one of those rare people who know on a cellular level that the only way to achieve what is expected of her and what she expects of herself is with patience and purpose,” one of her close friends explains to me when I ask her about Melania’s anxiety level during that period, when she had to shift from her old life to her new one. “She just always seems to know there is no rushing.”

Melania virtually ignored the flood of criticism that came her way for staying in New York City, despite the headlines about the hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost taxpayers for Secret Service protection and the actual inconveniences posed to New Yorkers, plenty of whom were sick and tired of making way for Trump-generated motorcades and barricades and protesters.

Pundits in general had a field day with speculation about Melania’s not moving to the White House, something that had never been done before. She didn’t want to be first lady, they said. She considered herself too good for Washington, people whispered. And, the most fun gossip of all, she flat out didn’t want to be around her husband. It’s certainly quite feasible Melania wasn’t in a particular hurry to fling open the curtains on her private life to the rest of the world, but the idea that she never intended to move to Washington is patently false. She was picking where furniture should go from diagrams of the White House private residence and working with the White House Historical Association to make sure she followed the correct guidelines of what was movable and what wasn’t long before her moving trucks arrived.

None of the Melania-won’t-move-here theories proved true, of course, and Grisham said as much when asked. “She plans to move to Washington as soon as her son finishes his school year,” she repeated, ad nauseam, to the press. But used to the fudged deadlines of her husband (his tag line would become “Let’s see what happens,” about

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