Katie Up and Down the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors Into a Family (8 page)

With my grandmother still vital but slowing down physically and living in an assisted-living facility, I now, in a way, had
“backup” surrogate grandparents right down the hall.

Their companionship and hospitality were therapeutic for me.

Likewise, I sensed that Katie and I were therapeutic for
them
—filling a void in Pearl and Arthur’s lives. Arthur, an avid reader and TV watcher, didn’t go out much as he was prone to
respiratory infections and colds. And while Pearl busied herself with day-to-day domestic chores, she had more energy than
she knew what to do with. Somehow, I sensed that both Arthur and Pearl were bored and a bit lonely in their retirement. After
all, they had no children, and their dog, Brandy, was gone; they had few relatives, and the ones they had almost never visited.

I would later find out that Arthur had periodically suffered throughout his life from depression, though he seemed reasonably
upbeat to me. In any case, having a puppy bounding around was definitely injecting new life into their household.

As for me, apartment 3C was fast becoming my safe harbor and Katie’s favorite playpen—a place for relaxed conversation, sage
advice, sharing neighborhood news, and relaxing with Katie. Thanks to Katie and Arthur and Pearl, the loneliness and isolation
I had previously felt living alone were now gone.

“So you’re sure you wouldn’t mind?” I asked Arthur about leaving Katie in 3C all day.

“Mind?!” he laughed, pulling Katie against him in his favorite armchair. “I need this little toaster to keep me warm. I’m
keeping her.”

“The dog walker,” added Pearl, always the practical one,
“can come by to get Katie at lunchtime and at five—but in between, she’s ours.”

Once I began the
News
job, I was consumed by it. Between writing Sunday magazine cover stories, a syndicated column called “Turning Point” about
how celebrities recovered from crisis, and entertainment features for the daily pages, it seemed I was either at the office
or away on day trips for interviews, practically never home. I had just about everyone you can imagine in my column, from
film stars to criminals—sometimes one and the same.

Interviewing these people about their movies, shows, and books might have seemed glamorous—and it often was—but, for me, it
was also incredibly stressful. Although I was usually at ease once the interview began, that first handshake was intimidating.

When the door opened, there was Meryl Streep, Elizabeth Taylor, Dolly Parton, Al Pacino, Diana Ross, Mia Farrow, Christopher
Reeve, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Calvin Klein, Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, Joan Kennedy, or Diane Sawyer—to name-drop
just a few interview subjects from that first year. And that’s not to mention one of my favorite repeat interviewees, Donald
Trump. Tall, and intimidating at first, he turned warm and witty once relaxed behind his desk at Trump Tower for what turned
out to be a series of long talks, first for the
Daily News
, then a multisession marathon interview for
Playboy
. This interview drew headlines due to his comments on Leona Helmsley and feelings about women and marriage.

Trump expressed his very human, more reflective side when expressing grief for the deaths of three of his executives in a
helicopter crash and for the death of his older brother due to alcoholism. “I was very close to him and it was very sad when
he died… toughest situation I’ve had.”

When returning home from this kind of interview, I’d feel drained and content to return to my much less Trump-like existence,
relieved to see Katie and Pearl and the gang, escaping what was, for me, a satisfying but stressful profession.

In hindsight, my work life felt a bit like
Fear Factor
. I pushed myself toward ever-more courageous (celebrity) stunts, and made a game out of how many “exclusives” I could pin
down, while facing deadline pressure and my own anxiety about meeting celebrities.

That anxiety, however, often melted away when there was a genuine, heartfelt rapport between me and my interview subject.
The most poignant example I can think of is a spring dinner at Senator Edward Kennedy’s house, with all three of his children
in attendance, the occasion being a Father’s Day interview. “We never give anyone a house tour, but come on, let’s take a
look,” the Senator told me, hospitably leading me into the enormous yellow-and-pink living room of his McLean, Virginia home,
then later into his private study to reflect on the tragedies he’d endured. “Obviously, there’s been a great deal of trauma,
suffering, and loss in our family,” he said, staring at the pictures of his brothers nearby on a table. “And it’s been a heavy
burden. My brothers were my dearest friends. They were just human beings—and wanted to be considered that way. I miss them,”
he finished, tears filling his eyes. “No day goes by when I don’t. No way to bridge that.”

At our farewell outside his house a few hours later, his advice to other fathers? “Let your children know you love them. That’s
what matters.” And then the evening ended.

Times like these were, of course, exhilarating and moving, but more often than not, my associations with famous subjects continued
to be a source of anxiety.

So while interviewing was good for my career, the pressure
of it wasn’t always so good for me. And all of it was taking me further away from Katie. Although my dog was happy with Pearl
and Arthur as her daytime keepers, I could tell she missed me.

Each night, when I finally got home, I’d knock on Pearl’s door, and while waiting for her to open it, I’d get down on my knees
on the carpet, ready to greet Katie at face level. The door would open, and Katie would practically leap out, flying into
my arms, whimpering with a mixture of ecstasy and anxiety. “
Dad, you’re home! I missed you,
” she seemed to be telling me, underlining my guilt at being absent for such a long stretch from morning to night.

In mid-March of that year, when Katie was eight months old, I took her back to the vet, Dr. Simon, to perform the spaying
operation. I hated the idea of having my dog put to sleep for any reason and was anxious the entire day.

“She’ll be fine, don’t worry, go home, come back at six,” Dr. Simon told me, shoving me toward the door just like De De always
did. When I returned, Katie was lying down calmly inside the kennel, snoozing. As the door opened and she saw me, she ran
into my arms as if we’d been separated a week.

Like any dog, she hated being alone. But unlike most high-rise city dogs, who do, by necessity, spend long periods of time
alone—napping, bored and lonely, or being taken out for fifteen-minute walks by dog walkers and then promptly returned to
their solitude—Katie was virtually
never
alone thanks to Pearl and Arthur.

In fact, my dog was a lot less lonely than I was. When I was on the road for business, there was nothing emptier than a hotel
room. I hated it and missed the comfort of having Katie next to me at night. Sometimes when I’d call Pearl from Los Angeles,
she’d put Katie “on the phone,” and I’d talk to her.
Pearl would tell me that her tail would wag, though I doubt she got the “connection.”

In short, like any working “parent,” I had a real problem. I didn’t know what to do about it until I decided to do the same
thing
on
the job as I had done interviewing
for
jobs—take Katie along with me to work.

One or two days a week, I’d sneak Katie into the
Daily News
building via that shopping bag, and she’d snooze on a blue desk chair right next to mine, her head resting on the armrest,
oblivious to anything or anyone. Puppies need their sleep. Most of the reporters liked seeing her around and came by to pet
her, while a few grumbly ones resented her presence.

In fact, it wasn’t long before the
New York Post
, our rival tabloid, ran this item in Richard Johnson’s widely read column, PAGE SIX:

Daily News
writer Glenn Plaskin can’t understand why his co-workers don’t like his dog. Katie, a blond cocker spaniel that Plaskin occasionally
brings to the office, has accompanied him on interviews with Leona Helmsley, Peter Jennings, and her namesake, Katharine Hepburn.
Contrary to the story making the rounds in the newsroom, “Katie has never, ever relieved herself in the office,” Plaskin told
Page Six. “The fact is, she’s better behaved than some of the people at the
News
.”

Uh-oh! That item didn’t make me too popular, though Katie did have her fans. One day, for example, the style editor dropped
by and said she was writing a story titled “Fashion Goes to the Dogs.”

“Would Katie like to model sweaters for us?” she asked.

Yes, she would!

As the story would explain, “pet clothing is going to be a tremendous fashion movement.” Proving it, there was Katie in the
cover photo, snuggled in the arms of a young female model, both of them in matching $250 beige-and-cream hand-knit wool sweaters.

“During a puppy’s first winter,” the story advised, “you should put on a sweater when the temperature is below 40.” Katie
was happy to do the job because she got a brand-new sweater out of the deal. And not long after that,
Family Circle
magazine invited her to model in a summer picnic pictorial, a huge platter of fried chicken nearby (most of it taken home
by us in a doggy bag).

At these photo shoots, and at others to follow, Katie would typically be perched up on a raised white or clear pedestal, surrounded
by bright lights and reflecting panels, obediently taking direction from the photographer and his assistant—none of it bothering
her.

“Over here, Katie,” the photographer would say, snapping his fingers and holding his hand up where he wanted her to focus.
“Look straight ahead now”—and so she would, remaining perfectly still, staring straight at the camera, holding the pose. Then
the assistant would go over to turn her head to a different angle, and she’d stay put.

True, I was sometimes behind the camera, holding up a biscuit, saying “Stay,” but even when I didn’t, she remained attentive,
as if to say, “
Dad! This is fun. Don’t bother me.
”

One time, when the shoot was over, she didn’t want to get off the platform and kept climbing back up on it. Finally, she rolled
on her back and spread her legs wide. The photographer noted, “We’re not
that
kind of magazine!”

N
ow that Katie was perfectly housebroken and had mastered all her commands, she was up and out of the house more than ever—Miss
Sociable, parading in and out of our building with Pearl and Arthur, who now treated her as their very own dog. (Some of our
neighbors thought Katie
was
their dog.)

But whenever I could wrest my dog away from her second parents, I had plans of my own.

To make my job more fun, I decided to defy Katie’s critics at the
News
and to take her along with me on as many interviews as possible. And she was soon rubbing shoulders (and noses) with a host
of celebrities.

In November 1989, for example, I had a long interview with Ivana Trump, then president of Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, which was,
at the time, owned by her soon-to-be ex-husband Donald.

The tall, bubbly Ivana—glamorously outfitted in a hot pink suit and amethyst-and-diamond earrings—was more exquisitely groomed
than any celebrity I’ve ever met.

Sitting in her Plaza Hotel office (not far from the gold-
leafed Palm Court that she had meticulously restored to its lush glory), Ivana told me all about her bleak early years in
Communist Czechoslovakia working at a shoe factory, bent over an assembly line.

As I wrote, “Ivana serenely gazes now at her custom-made silk pumps, and contemplates their continuing lesson, vowing ‘that
I was never—EVER—going to do that kind of work again.’” Indeed not.

I was taken by Ivana’s infectious energy, self-discipline, and determination to prove herself as a businesswoman.