The Candidate's Wife
by Victoria Griffith
From the July 2003 issue.
bostonmagazine.com
Rich, smart, frank, and powerful, Teresa Heinz Kerry has always gotten lots of attention. Now that her husband is running for president, she's getting more than she bargained for. And what are those whispers about her temper?
"What do you think, Teresa?" U.S. Senator John Kerry asks, leaning down solicitously toward his wife. He's seeking not political advice, but guidance in the fruit section of Savenor's, the Beacon Hill gourmet food store. The two move slowly through the tiny shop choosing produce with care for an intimate dinner in their Louisburg Square mansion, their driver waiting in Kerry's blue Chrysler minivan outside. The minutes at Savenor's clearly provide a refuge for John and Teresa Heinz Kerry — he keenly interested in his wife's opinions, she basking in the glow of her husband's attention.
Attention is something Heinz Kerry appears to have craved for all of her 64 years, but with Kerry in the throes of a presidential primary campaign, she's been getting much more of it lately than she bargained for. The media is now almost constantly buzzing around her, drawn by her unpredictability and frankness and by the glamour of the $550 million ketchup fortune she inherited in 1991, when her first husband, U.S. Senator John Heinz III, was killed in a plane crash. The insecurity created by a new place in the limelight often causes her to furrow her brow in worry these days. It causes her newly appointed political assistants to furrow their brows, too, and suddenly Heinz Kerry has become uncharacteristically guarded and anxious.
Should she have done her hair differently? she asks an aide before a photo shoot for Vanity Fair at her house in Washington, DC's Georgetown section, pushing back her curls with the delicate gesture of a woman who doesn't really have to worry about her appearance (though a friend confides that Heinz Kerry has recently become concerned about her weight and she confesses to undergoing Botox treatments). She's already fretting about becoming the target of negative campaigning ahead. "It may be pie in the sky," she says, "but I'd love to see a primary in which whoever loses, loses with great honor and satisfaction."
As a generous philanthropist and a senator's wife twice over, Heinz Kerry is used to satisfaction, if not downright flattery. The world she inhabits is one of both physical and emotional luxury. For every check she has written — and there have been many, many checks — there is a grateful recipient on the other end. Not surprisingly, Heinz Kerry is far more accustomed to praise than criticism. The coddling she enjoys as a wealthy donor has ill prepared her for the cold scrutiny she now faces as the wife of a presidential candidate.
At a society luncheon for Save the Children, Heinz Kerry is in her milieu. The charity event in Manhattan's swank Pierre Hotel is attended by a mostly female audience of 200, with nary a hair out of place. Wearing $10,000 outfits, they gather in a chandeliered ballroom to talk about the importance of donating $20 to children in Africa.
A photograph and short biography of Heinz Kerry, today's honoree, has been left at every place setting. Old friends and family members are here to show their support. Heinz Kerry's stepsister-in-law, Wendy MacKenzie, and her sister-in-law, Peggy Kerry, are seated at the table next to hers. A beautiful woman named Sasha Lewis is introduced as the girlfriend of Heinz Kerry's youngest son, 30-year-old Christopher. "Christopher is working on [Kerry's] campaign," Heinz Kerry announces proudly. Later today, she plans to tour his newly done loft downtown, decorated with 17th-century Dutch paintings from the collection Heinz Kerry acquired with her late husband.
Lewis adds to the praise being lavished upon Heinz Kerry, describing her generosity at a wedding both attended recently. After Lewis's bags were lost by the airline, Heinz Kerry took matters into her own hands. "You come with me," she said, and ushered Lewis to her room, where she offered to lend her an extra Chanel suit she'd brought along. "She says she always travels with spares," Lewis says with a laugh, clearly touched by the girlish ritual of sharing clothes with her boyfriend's mother.
Hotel waiters serve a light lunch of salad and grilled chicken; the attendees at this event all seem to be watching their weight. An announcer talks about the value of Heinz Kerry's volunteer work. Heinz Kerry moves toward the podium, slowing to squeeze the shoulder of an old friend and Idaho neighbor, Melinda Blinken, a handsome woman in a pinstripe suit and a fixture on the Washington party circuit, who also works for environmental causes, and whose husband ran unsuccessfully last year for the Senate as a Democrat. The slightest smile crosses Heinz Kerry's face, a genuine sign of affection in a woman whose expressions tend toward deadpan.
As soon as she starts speaking, it's clear that Heinz Kerry is uncomfortable with the negative press she's been getting. "I'll take all the flattery I can get these days," she jokes before launching into her prepared remarks. When the microphone goes dead partway through her speech, Heinz Kerry looks at her audience in dismay. "You didn't hear any of it?" she asks. She's talking about the speech, and she's relieved when they assure her they heard almost all of it.
Heinz Kerry has been talking up a storm lately, with a frankness that has her husband's campaign staffers up in arms. She told the Washington Post that she's lucky not to be throttled in the middle of the night when Kerry has Vietnam flashbacks. She described her prenuptial agreement and Botox treatments to Elle, and made a gunshot sound when asked what she'd do if Kerry were unfaithful. She never really suspected either of her husbands of cheating, she added. "What I expect of them, they have a right to expect of me," she said. "Maybe I'm into 18-year-olds." She told the Boston Globe of her shock and pleasure at seeing blacks in South Africa, where she was sent to boarding school from her home in Mozambique at age 13. "Our guys weren't so black and so big," she said. This month, Vanity Fair is scheduled to weigh in with that profile for which Heinz Kerry was posing in Georgetown. |
