Whenever Studibert had come to town in between the time I had met him at The Arrival Ceremony, and the demise of The Wall, he had given a note written on White House stationary to Fred to deliver to me under the guise of politeness. The notes would say things like “Next time I’m in town, you’ll have to meet me at the airport, for an ice-cream,” and “Every time I come through here I always see Fred! Next time I’d like to see you.”
I was too naïve to think anything of these notes. I kept them as souvenirs along with all the other White House and Air Force One memorabilia I had accumulated from Studibert. Receiving calls from the White House soon became routine. Studibert would have his lackey, Luke, call up, and soon “White-House” Luke and I were old friends: “Hi, this is Luke from the White House,” he’d say. Then I’d reply: “Hi, Luke. This is Kathy from the off-white House (since that was the color of my house). And then we’d have our little chitchat about what the latest agenda for Studibert would be, especially in terms of how he was planning to interface with Fred and I.
More on Fred:
It’s important to note that it would seem to any outsider that Fred and I had a wonderful marriage and life together. This was absolutely not the case. It was only a pretense so that Fred could appear to be something better than he actually was. Fred’s concern with how he and his life appeared to the outside world was all consuming to him. Appearance was more important than anyone or anything in his whole life. Fred’s demeanor at work was that of the impeccable, gracious host. He was the most willing servant, the most levelheaded, intelligent, and dashing PR man anyone had ever met. Yet at home, he was arrogant, aloof, pre-disposed, and mean-spirited. He never hesitated to use people, particularly me and my family and opportunities to further his own aggrandizement.
I had married Fred on the rebound of an extremely heart-breaking engagement to a College sweetheart. Fred seemed to be grounded enough, and would make a stable husband (I convinced myself at the time he proposed). When Fred and I were first married, he worked his way through law school doing reservations for Pan American World Airways. Fred’s last name is the same as the world famous golfer, Seve Ballesteros. In the 1970’s Seve was the #1 European golfer in the world, and winning almost all his PGA tournaments in the US, including the Masters, The Doral Open, La Costa, etc. Seve was young and handsome, and his agent, Ed Barner, happened to have been engaged to a close first cousin of mine. When the day came that Ed called in to book a round-the-world trip in conjunction with being a pro-golf agent and got Fred Ballesteros as the Res. Agent, Ed, immediately pounced on Fred’s name, declaring himself to be Ballesteros' agent. Fred, of course remembered Ed’s name from my family’s discussion of the doomed engagement, and using it to his advantage, asked Ed if he had ever been engaged to an Ann Rushing (not her real name). Of course he had, and so an immediate connection and subsequent friendship ensued.
This friendship brought Fred and I many opportunities to attend some of the most prestigious golf tournaments in and outside the country. We attended La Costa a few times to watch Seve, and hob-knob with Ed and other celebrities. I was always amused at the California “Rich and Famous” look on the course at La Costa. There were all these middle-aged rich women with their hair done impeccably, make-up applied by movie-quality artisans, and gorgeous porcelain nails painted bright red. But then they were dressed in velour sweat-pants and sweat-shirts. It seemed so odd to me: I always thought the golfers dressed funny, but seeing the get-ups these gals had come up with made the golf out-fits look like Bill Blass had designed them (of course, Blass probably designed the sweat pants, too). I imagined that these women had grown up on hog farms in Arkansas and married geeks who accidentally struck it rich. But between the hog farm and the good life, they had never acquired any taste or fashion savvy. It almost made me forget that I was the poor person there.
We also had the chance to escort Bob and Dolores Hope and other celebrities (e.g. Don Rickles & wife, Bob Newhart & wife, James Garner & wife, Telley and George Sevalis, etc.), back and forth to the Bob Hope British Classic in England for the few years it lasted (someone was stealing from the funds that were raised to benefit the Children’s Spastic Society). We spent a few days getting to know these people, but I suppose the best part about doing this kind of work is that people would offer to carry my luggage for me when I was going through the airports. Also, when we’d arrive in London, there’d be a car and driver waiting to pick us up at the airport. The car would have the big “Bob Hope British Classic” logo painted on the hood of the car, and people would throng around us to see which famous people we would turn out to be. Most of them reacted as though they recognized us when we’d emerge from the vehicle, but we did manage to disappoint most of the crowd.
This kind of activity went a long way to convince Fred that he was just a little more special than almost anyone else on the planet. He was so special, in fact, that he decided he deserved to have a girlfriend in addition to his wife. One of the Pan Am flight attendants would do -- and she did for awhile. I knew about her, but by now I was so busy with raising the 4 boys I had had in the first 5 years of marriage, that I was beyond caring. I had also reconciled myself to the fact that Fred did not now, nor did he ever love me (his words, not mine). I was stuck in a loveless, lonely marriage, with 4 wonderful, innocent boys, and I had just better make the best of it, and so I did.
I put up with Fred’s brown-nosing until I was sick to death of this along with his mooching until I was humiliated beyond words. I endured his tyrannical mood-swings until I could no longer function as a normal human being. For many years I thought I was crazy because of the anger and regret Fred would incite in me: “If only I was a better wife; a better housekeeper; a more righteous person; more beautiful; had a better figure; was a better cook; and on and on. Then I realized that when you live with someone who does not possess the human qualities of sympathy and empathy, you cannot expect anything more than self-serving, self-centered behavior. I was resigned, and made myself appear as the dutiful wife at every one of Fred’s little excursions into the fantasyland of celebrity. Fred ate it up, and soon became addicted to using me for this because of how people reacted to Fred when they met me:
We had had bean soup in the Capitol restaurant with our Congressman Jim Hansen, and had explored the Oval Office when guided by one of the Secret Service long before we had met Studibert. But it was Studibert who got the most mileage out of Fred, because he could have Fred fix tickets for him at the airport, upgrade him without paying, and then have Fred show up to various political functions and rallies as the token Latino.
One of the most fun things we did with Studibert between the time we had attended the Gorbachev Arrival Ceremony, and the fall of The Berlin Wall, was to participate in the Presidential campaign. During the summer of 1989, we were invited to attend the debates between Vice President Bush, and Governor Dukhakis before the impending elections coming up in November. The last three debates were to be held in Southern California on the UCLA campus. Studibert was an aid to Sununu as Bush’s campaign manager, and so finagled a way to have us fly down to L.A., and meet up with him at the UCLA debate.
Well why not? We could fly for free, and Studibert always had some sort of surprise for us wherever we went with him. So off we went. After the debates, we were invited to drive with the Vice Presidential motorcade from UCLA to Loyola University where there was a Republican rally being organized afterwards. Bush was very dignified and self-confident at the debate we attended, and Dukhakis came off looking like a hot-head (p.s. Sally Field was there, and looked really old without her makeup). Then we were ushered into the press van behind the Vice President. Even though I had spent most of my life living in L.A., I never realized that the drive from UCLA to Loyola was only 20-minutes. It would normally take about an hour and a half, but when the Secret Service blocked off the freeways going both ways (and during rush-hour I might add), and we didn't have to stop for any red lights on the surface streets, we could just fly on by! It was a lot of fun to see the traffic backed-up as far as the eye could see (which was pretty far, even for L.A., because it was a clear day). Horns were honking, and people were extremely unhappy.
When we got to Loyola for the rally, we were positioned with such celebrities as Chuck Norris, Jamie Farr, and Billie Barty. Fred was the minority in this “side show”, and it was here that I realized that Studibert was using Fred for this purpose as he carefully positioned him where the cameras could see him, and made Bush specifically shake his hand. I just stood and fanned Mr. Barty, because he was sweating up a storm. It was too noisy to talk to anyone around us, but Billy would look up and thank me every once in awhile, and I thought he was great!
Bush won his election for President, and Studibert began his new career as the Image and Special Events man for The White House. We received our official invitations and passes to all the Inaugural events for #41, but we did not attend the ceremonies. We received our invitations 2 days after the RSVP date, and so we were convinced that they were just “token” invites. Later, Studibert expressed his disappointment that we did not come to town to attend Bush’s Presidential Inauguration. Having the invitation and various event tickets and candy jars were enough for me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment