MARTHA, how could you?
As she marched into the courtroom yesterday in dun-colored spike heels and a shapeless smock – looking like a gardener who moonlights as a dominatrix – Martha Stewart brushed up against my lowly self. I could practically smell her.
In court hearings past, the queen of control freaks has choreographed her every unscuffed, high-heeled step to ensure minimal contact with the masses.
Cops stop traffic for her motorcade. She’s even commandeered the taxpayer-paid services of our fine court officers, who have been known to shoo common pedestrians out of Martha’s Manolo-shod path.
Normally, you can’t get within 50 feet of the dame unless you can buy a meal at the Four Seasons.
But there I was, eyeball-to-nose with the vertically gifted professional homemaker and accused criminal. So I decided to make the most of this rare close encounter.
“Good morning, Martha!” I said probingly. “How are you?”
“Fine,” Martha mumbled under her breath. She nodded curtly. She scowled. Martha scowls a lot. Then quickly, she got the hell away.
Finally. Martha Stewart, tall, tousle-haired, expensively but casually dressed – a tad too casually for someone facing jail – kept her appointment with the law. She sailed into the federal courthouse like some aging supermodel, waving to the two lonely fans who came out to see her, tossing that highlighted mane and toting two satchels, including a jam-packed Hermes Birkin bag. These things sell for thousands – tens of thousands.
Preparations for Martha’s arrival began before 8:30 a.m., as court officers were spotted on the street, scraping a pathway out of the ice between the curb and the courthouse steps.
In court, Martha scowled and took notes. She repeatedly and energetically tossed her mane and pushed the hair out of her eyes, to no avail. But when she rose to speak, her gravelly voice was nearly inaudible.
“Not guilty,” she said five times about the charges against her.
To win this case, Martha Stewart is playing the girly card. She wants you to believe that she is the victim of a justice system that’s out to bag a successful woman.
But like everything else in the hyper-controlled world of Martha, this is a carefully scripted pose. Martha is a lady who always knows what she is doing.
For once, I got close enough to see her for what she really is.