The Ungaggable Teresa Heinz

Teresa Heinz (Ted Fitzgerald - The Boston Herald via AP)

Fabulously wealthy Teresa Heinz, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, dishes an earful to writer Lisa DePaulo in the upcoming issue of Elle magazine -- such as her ambivalence about taking her second husband's surname and her requirement of a prenuptial agreement with the 59-year-old Massachusetts senator, whom she wed in 1995.

"Now, politically, it's going to be Teresa Heinz Kerry, but I don't give a [bleep], you know?" explains the 64-year-old Heinz, who generally uses the surname of the late senator John Heinz (R-Pa.), who was killed in a 1991 plane crash. "There are other things to worry about."

Including:

• Her tendency to fidget, glower or interrupt, instead of simply gaze, when her husband gives a speech. "They think I should always be looking adoringly at him," she sighs.

• Her financial arrangement with Kerry: "Everybody has a prenup. You have to have a prenup. You've got to have a prenup. You could be as generous or as sensitive as you want. But you have to have a prenup."

• Her regular Botox treatments: "In fact I need another one. Soon." As for cosmetic surgery, "when I need it, I'll get it." She confides that she'd like to fix her nose, which has gotten "bulbier" with age.

• Her views on marital fidelity: "I don't think I could have coped so well" with a mate's philandering as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has. "I used to say to my husband, my late husband, 'If you ever get something I'll maim you. Not kill you, just maim you.' And we'd laugh, laugh, laugh." Heinz adds that she has never had any reason to suspect either of her husbands. "Not for one day, because what I expect of them, they have a right to expect of me. Maybe I'm into 18-year-olds." At which Heinz's campaign handler, former political journalist Chris Black, cautioned bleakly: "That was a joke."

The candidate, meanwhile, praises the prospective first lady as "nurturing and incredibly loving, and fun, zany, witty. . . . Definitely sexy. Very earthy, sexy, European. She knows how to speak with her eyes."

A Dunn Deal

• Life has been going nicely for Rep. Jennifer Dunn, the 58-year-old It Girl of Washington state Republicans, since the White House failed to persuade her to run next year against two-term incumbent Democrat Sen. Patty Murray.

Yesterday Dunn told us that she's wearing the six-carat Ceylon sapphire engagement ring, surrounded by diamonds, that her 65-year-old British-born beau, businessman Keith Thomson, presented her on April 14, the anniversary of their first date.

Thomson, former CEO of the Fluor Corp.'s Hanford cleanup operation, popped the question in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. "We were at dinner at a fabulous restaurant, the Inn at Blackbeard's Castle, and I had a good idea that something was coming," Dunn said. "He asked me if he had to get down on his knee, and I told him that wasn't necessary."

Dunn said she and Thomson, who have each been married previously, are looking for a house in the D.C. area.

This Just In . . .

• President Bush is expected to join Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- as well as headliners Jerry Seinfeld, Tony Bennett and Norah Jones -- at the May 19 "Israel at 55" rally marking the beleaguered Jewish state's anniversary at MCI Center. This will be the first time for Bush to stand alongside the polarizing Sharon at such a celebratory event. Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev told us the joint appearance is simply a demonstration of an age-old friendship between two nations, but James Zogby of the Arab American Institute worried: "Given the perception that we are the military occupiers of Baghdad and that we have contributed to what's happening to the Palestinians, this is not the best of times for our country in the Middle East. If the president is celebrating with Ariel Sharon, that will be followed closely in the Arab world, and that's a precarious position for the president to be in."

Beth Berselli with first lady Laura Bush during an interview at the White House in 2001. (The White House/File Photo)

• We hear that this column isn't always Laura Bush's favorite, but she gives credit where it is due. Our former associate Beth Berselli, who left this space in May 2001 to instruct inner-city schoolchildren in Phoenix, has persuaded the first lady to visit her 20 fifth-graders and field their questions Friday at Arizona State University during a Teach for America recruiting program.

Quote

"When you can't defend what you're doing, that personality attack is the only defense you have. So Armitage was like a squid, blowing out ink to hide from predators."

-- Animal Planet fan Newt Gingrich, responding to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's "off his meds and out of therapy" insult in an interview with the Boston Globe's A.B. Stoddard, and making us wish he were still speaker of the House.