Katie Up and Down the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors Into a Family (7 page)

Sometimes when the sun was streaming in, I’d find her on the carpet by the window, stretched out on her back, legs spread,
as if sunbathing. Other times, she was lazily stretched out on the cool surface of the hallway floor.

Sometimes, I couldn’t find her at all, until I looked closely.

Then, as I scoured the room, there she was, hilariously, burrowed under the table skirt, with only her black nose sticking
out from underneath. This became a regular game. I’d say, “Katie! Where
are
you?” No movement. Finally, “Katie… I bet you’re real
hungry
?!”

And like a rocket, she’d fly out from under the table, tail wagging, bound into the kitchen, then eagerly sit down on the
floor, waiting for a treat.

When company came over, to keep a better eye on the proceedings, she’d trot into the living room and lounge under the black
Chinese coffee table, biting on one of her bones. When it was all chewed up and gone, she’d trail into the kitchen and start
scratching on the cabinet door that held the new ones.

Katie soon learned where just about everything was.

I’d ask her, quite softly, “Want to go OUT?” And in one long leap, she was off the bed, running toward the door. She’d pull
the leash off the knob, sit down waiting to be hitched up, then race down the hallway to the elevator and patiently wait for
it to open.

Smart and agile as she was, her physical abilities couldn’t always keep up with her determined spirit. Most frustrating to
her was her inability to leap onto the bed without my help, though she’d try. She’d make a running start but repeatedly fall
short of the bed, falling back down onto the carpet like a
failed gymnast, toppling over on her back, looking startled and confused.

But we worked it out. I’d say “go,” she’d take a leap, and then from behind, I’d give her a big boost with my palms, lifting
her onto the bed. Within eight months, she’d mastered the move. In fact, she was well on her way to running my entire household
single-pawedly.

Now it was time to put her to work.

I
n the fall of 1988, as Katie was practicing her sitting, coming, and staying, and racing up and down the hall with her favorite
blue rubber ball, I was busily looking for a full-time job as an entertainment reporter—hoping to end the isolation of working
at home.

One wintry day in mid-November, I had a job interview set up at CNN and impulsively decided to take Katie along with me, as
Pearl was away that day and I didn’t want to leave her alone. Besides, I thought having a puppy present might break the ice.

“Wow,” said the producer, Scott Leon, marveling at Katie’s long ears. “She looks like Lady from
Lady and the Tramp.
” I’d never thought of that, but she really did. “I bet she’s photogenic.” Katie shook her ears and went obediently “down”
for a nap, snoozing under Scott’s desk as we talked.

We had an enjoyable interview, but Scott must have ultimately thought the dog was better on-camera than me, because I didn’t
get the job. But it gave me a good idea.

From then on, I’d take Katie to
all
my interviews. It couldn’t hurt. And with the weather getting colder, why not increase the entertainment value by dressing
her up, usually military-style,
in a navy-blue knit coat with brass buttons on it (sometimes complemented by a red knitted hat that tied under her chin in
a bow).

Every time we went out on such appointments, Katie jumped into the back seat of the taxi and sat up with her paws on the door
and her nose pressed up against the window, studying the view. She soon learned how to negotiate escalators, elevators, revolving
doors, and subway steps, all while practicing her new manners.

One day later that month, I had an interview with Gil Spencer, the charismatic editor in chief of the
New York Daily News
. He had a great sarcastic wit and the ability to tease out someone’s true personality. I instantly clicked with him. And
he liked dogs too.

“Where did Katie go to journalism school?” he inquired, looking over my interview clips.

“Well, she took her undergrad degree from Columbia, her master’s from NYU, and now she’s ready to work,” I joked. (Neither
of those schools were in my résumé, as my degrees were in classical music, not journalism.)

I had three more follow-up interviews at the
Daily News
’s classic Art Deco headquarters on 42nd Street, an impressive structure that inspired the design of the
Daily Planet
building for all the Superman movies of the 1970s and 1980s.

I’d found after my first visit that dogs weren’t allowed in the building—much less in the newsroom. But defying this rule,
I snuck Katie in anyway, each time hiding her in a large shopping bag as we passed by the giant globe of the world slowly
rotating in the lobby.

Only Katie’s black nose stuck out from the bag as I passed by security guards at the elevator. When she started squirming
a bit, I headed her off, “Shhhhhh!”

When we reached the newsroom floor, she’d leap out of the bag and trot through the bustling newsroom and into Gil’s spacious
office again.

She’d sit on Gil’s lap and work her magic on him, putting her paws on his desk as he scratched her ears. She never did lick
his face, perhaps sensing that this was supposed to be business.

On the final visit, he sent me down the hall to meet the Sunday magazine editor, Jay Maeder, who was also a hospitable host
to Katie. “I don’t know how you got her in here, but she classes up the joint,” he smirked. Well, at least they’d never forget
this job applicant.

A few days later, I got the call that I was hired! I’d begin in January. And I credited Katie, in some measure, for using
her canine charms to land me the job.

Over the next few weeks before I started my new full-time job in midtown, Katie began visiting her new friends Pearl and Arthur
more often than ever.

It had all started one morning when I accidentally left my front door ajar after taking out the garbage. I went back into
the bedroom for a few minutes, and when I returned to the kitchen, Katie was gone. She’d knocked down the baby gate and pushed
open the front door to escape. When I went into the hallway, she wasn’t there either.

I knocked on Pearl’s door, and when it opened, there was my dog, sitting contentedly on Pearl’s green-upholstered dining room
chair, her paws gripping the tablecloth, busily eating a piece of toast right out of Arthur’s hand. She didn’t even turn around
to look at me.

“How did this happen?!” I asked, as Pearl and Arthur laughed with uproarious delight.

“She’s my girl now,” Arthur said.

“Your dog,” said Pearl, “has a mind of her own.”

And from that time forward, every morning after eating breakfast and slobbering water all over the kitchen floor, Katie waited
impatiently at my door, scratching the wall, anxious to get down the hall into her new friends’ apartment.

Within a year, my doorway had to be replastered and repainted from all her scratching. I told my friends I was somewhat insulted
that my own dog couldn’t wait to get away from me. But there was no stopping her. It was as if she was telling me, “
Dad, I gotta get going. See ya!
”

Once we got the morning routine down, I didn’t even have to leave my apartment. After her regular walk outside and breakfast,
Katie would barrel down the red-carpeted hallway from my apartment and make a hard right turn into Pearl’s, pushing against
the door, which Pearl now left open. Katie would then trot over to the dining table and jump up on her hind legs to grab a
piece of crispy toast, which was always waiting for her, from the corner of the table.

Then, in one smooth motion, she’d leap onto the dining chair and daintily arrange her paws on the table, waiting for some
French toast or a snippet of bacon.

“Girlie! You’re hungry today,” laughed Pearl.

“Don’t bite!” scolded Arthur, torturing Katie by dangling a piece of bacon above her.

Gulp. Down it went.

Katie also acquired a taste for honeydew melon and apples, and would soon become an expert at eating corn on the cob (side
to side without missing a kernel) and watermelon too (spitting out the seeds). After her various snacks, she’d cover Pearl’s
face with kisses, then trail into the bedroom, getting a boost up from Arthur to get on the bed. She’d snooze on Pearl’s nightgown
or watch TV for the rest of the morning.

Amazingly, Katie did have an inner alarm clock, and at exactly 5:00 p.m. each day, she’d go to her food bowl, sit down, and
wait impatiently for either Pearl or me to fill it.

Then, later at night, she did everything in reverse, scratching at Pearl’s doorway, anxious to go home to me. What a routine—from
their bed to mine, from one food bowl to another—a perfect life for a dog.

And so it was that my new puppy had essentially two homes—and was determined to have equal access to both. And even though
I never intended for Katie to become a permanent part of Pearl’s household, our routine evolved naturally and became the catalyst
for a budding friendship.

“Once you begin your job in January,” said Pearl, “just leave her here in the morning and we’ll take care of her until you
get home.”

“You WILL?” I asked incredulously, touched by this generosity. I had planned on hiring a dog walker, but since Katie was only
five months old, I was worried about leaving her alone at home between walks.

But beyond the expediency of finding Katie babysitters, my friendship with Pearl and Arthur was touching my heart in ways
I hadn’t expected.

I had always loved the company of my grandparents (and older people in general)—and was especially close to my maternal grandmother,
Essie, who lived in Buffalo, New York.

Nana, as we nicknamed Essie, was nearly ninety years old—but still clearheaded, charismatic, and a great conversationalist,
my all-around favorite person in the world. When I was a kid, she was truly a second mother to me and to my sisters. I became
jubilant whenever I saw her car pulling up into our driveway, her yellow tortoise-shell purse catching the light.

Sometimes we’d sit at the kitchen table, laughing for hours as Nana quizzed me on American history, afterward treating me
to her fantastic crumb cake or signature Cream of Wheat.

She also played the piano—usually “The Skating Song,” a popular tune in the silent movie days. But mostly, she’d sit on the
bench next to me, encouraging my efforts at the keyboard (and years later, attending all my piano recitals).

When I was hospitalized in my twenties for a stomach ailment, there she was, nursing me back to health; a few years later,
when my first book was published, she was next to me at Barnes & Noble, smartly dressed, as I signed copies.

And five years after that, we marketed Nana’s shortbread meringue cookies, dubbed “Essie’s Crumby Dessert Squares… The Crumbiest
You Ever Had.” Katharine Hepburn, Peter Jennings, Nancy Reagan, Calvin Klein, and Paul Newman all raved about them, giving
her endorsements. They were sold at Bloomingdale’s and led to such newspaper headlines as “Top Stars Clamoring for More of
Buffalo Grandma’s Cookies” and “Cookies Turning a Grandmother into Rising Star.” Nana was now being interviewed on television
and signing autographs!

In short, Nana was remarkable in every way—and with me, every step of the way. On my first visit home with Katie for Thanksgiving,
my dog sat on Nana’s lap, looking up at her with adoration—and with high hopes, for she had the baker
herself
popping those delicious meringue squares into her mouth.

“She’s nice and warm—a good blanket,” laughed Nana, stroking Katie’s head, and later sneaking her pieces of turkey under the
table.

Nana was especially thrilled the day I called to announce that I’d gotten a full-time job at a newspaper. “Shhhhh. Don’t tell
anyone,” she warned me, superstitious that good news could evaporate.

And now, on my phone calls home, Nana would listen, with relish, to all my stories about Pearl and Arthur and Katie’s antics.
“You tell Pearl I said hello!” Nana would always say.