Chapter 2: Jazzy

It was a cold day. It was December 9. Indoors it was just as bitter. It was exactly one week to the day since my husband had died.

My home was filled with lawyers telling me that probate would take two years. A real estate broker had sent a note asking was I interested in selling my apartment since it might now seem too large and expensive for me to keep. My accountant was on the phone giving me the news that I had somehow acquired a tax audit for the two previous years.

And into this chilly atmosphere a warm puppy was suddenly thrust into my arms.

For too long I had known only an ailing, aging spouse. Life for me was strictly home health-care attendants, relief weekend nurses, rotating aides on an overnight shift. It was schedules for the medications, emergency numbers for the doctors, and prescriptions for the drugstore.

I could not have been less prepared for what happened that day. I wasn’t used to any live thing growing in my house. No kids, no plants, no dogs. Definitely not some squirming, squiggling, squawling Yorkie who weighed two pounds, two ounces, and was the size of a rat’s ass.

Neither of us seemed overly happy. For sure this unnecessary, unrequested hair ball wasn’t all that thrilled to meet me, either. It wanted its mother, and the only resemblance possibly was my eensy amount of unwaxed facial hair and the fact that I polish off every table scrap I see. But even at three months of age this thing had no difficulty realizing I wasn’t its mom.

Inside a Park Avenue kitchen with twelve unblinking eyes staring at it and with its head pressed hard against a scratchy sweater with clunky wood-block buttons wasn’t where the creature wanted to be. It was like a surgeon’s hand had just wrenched this little being from the womb and given her a slap. She was yowling that loud.

After years of terminal hibernation, my maternal instincts did not instantly kick in.

I was terrified. I was irritated. I was unsettled. The yapping was ceaseless. My problems seemed endless. And now, what to do with this wriggly, hairy mass? I didn’t know. I didn’t know how to hold it still. In fact, I didn’t know how to hold it at all. One tiny hind leg the size of a chicken drumstick was bunched up in my right hand, its companion leg was out and flailing.

And six people were standing around frozen. Mouths open, eyes wide. They weren’t sure what to do. They weren’t sure what I would do. I wasn’t sure what to do.

But all of a sudden, one of the bodies in that room instinctively knew for sure what to do. And did it. And right away a warm feeling came over me. The newest member of my household had just peed on me.

The fifteen-second silence felt like a full five minutes. Then came the first voice. “I guess we know how she feels about being here. She was pissed off,” said the lawyer.

“Hey, that’s good luck.” His young assistant laughed nervously.

“No, you idiot, that’s when you spill champagne,” said the lawyer.

Joey, who wrote thirty-six joke books in his lifetime, used to tell the one about the two attorneys who were standing in a field of manure. Suddenly one looked down and said, “My God, we’re melting!” For absolutely no reason at all I suddenly remembered that joke, and I thought, lawyers are in no position to discuss bathroom functions.

As the dog vented her opinion of me, the frozen tableau in front of me melted. They moved. Everyone ran to do something.

My housekeeper, Nazalene, went for another clean, dry sweater. Somebody else tore off a paper towel. Since one of us-either the dog or me-was still dribbling, a voice shouted out, “Newspaper. We need newspaper. Somebody find some newspaper.”

The nearest one, the one open on the kitchen table, was mine. The New York Post. The paper for which I write a gossip column six days a week. It was opened to my page, and the owner of the voice threw it down on the floor.

“NO! Not the Post. I don’t want this dog doing it on the Post, for God’s sake. Find something else,” I shouted.

“How about the Times?” said the voice.

“Yeah. The New York Times. Good. Perfect. Turn it to the editorial page,” I said, holding the dog straight out and shaking her in an effort to dry off her still dripping whatever.

Too late. This dog took one look at the New York Post, and my column definitely caught her interest. She poured all over me.

The two lawyers decided this might be the propitious time to make their good-byes, and they began to put on their hats and coats. “Don’t leave empty-handed,” I said. “Take your dog with you.”

“Our dog? He’s not our dog,” they said.

“What do you mean not your dog. Who brought him? Whose dog is this?”

“We don’t know,” they said. “He’s not our dog. We thought he was your dog.”

“My dog?” I repeated inanely. “How could it be my dog? I don’t have a dog.”

As my glazed eyeballs began to focus, I saw that one of the humans inside my kitchen was a total stranger.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Max Courtney, ma’am.”

“What’s a Max Courtney?”

“Chauffeur, ma’am.”

“So? So who are you? What are you doing in my kitchen?”

This nice-looking gray-haired gentleman appeared as tongue-tied as everyone else.

“I’m just doing my job, ma’am.”

“Yeah? So? What are you doing in my kitchen? Who did you chauffeur?”

There was a silence, then, “Not who. What.”

I was becoming annoyed. “What are you talking about?”

“That.” He pointed to the nervous hair ball that was now hanging upside down in my two hands.

As I lowered my hands-the hair ball’s docked tail was halfway up my nose-he explained that he worked for a nationwide livery service. His boss at the Manhattan office had received a call from their California base. It was from a customer in Beverly Hills by the name of Michael Viner.

I knew Michael Viner. A TV producer. He and his wife, actress Deborah Raffin, are also copresidents of New Millennium, a house that publishes books on tape. They also happen to be two of my best friends. I’d seen them just a few days earlier. They’d flown to New York for my husband’s funeral and back to Los Angeles the next morning.

Yes, I definitely knew Michael Viner. In fact, at that very moment, I was staring at cases and cases of soda stacked up in my pantry. They’d been sent by Michael so I’d have plenty on hand for the well-wishers who’d been dropping by all week to pay their respects.

Seems Michael had decided I needed something in my life. I was newly alone and this aloneness was very fresh. I had no family. No brothers, no sisters, no children. My mother, who was the same age as my husband, no longer knew who I was. Michael decided I needed something to love. It was a decision, however, that he made unilaterally. Without me.

Michael and Deborah are dog lovers. They’ve always had dogs. They own two Yorkies, Crillon and Scooter. Scooter they’d recently acquired during a trip east. They’d been driving around Connecticut and passed a sign that said Barnhill Kennels. Within minutes they’d introduced themselves to Paula Segnatelli, breeder of Yorkshire terriers.

This very morning Michael had called Paula and, without asking me anything or telling me anything, inquired if there was any relative of Scooter’s available. Paula had one. This one. Scooter’s cousin. This one’s father and grandfather were champions. This one was a purebred pedigree with the papers and bloodline up the kazoo.

Michael, on the phone from Los Angeles, had told Paula he’d send a limousine to Connecticut to pick up Scooter’s baby cousin. The limo had had one sole passenger. In the backseat, all alone. My brand-new, unasked for, unexpected child. His trip in had cost $475.

Six hours later the driver of this limo, who had made contact with my doorman, who had then reached out to my housekeeper, was standing in my kitchen.

It didn’t take long-maybe fifteen minutes-and I was already deep in the throes of total panic. This little dog would be looking to me to take care of it, and I had no idea what to do.

I rang Joan Rivers, whose Yorkshire terrier, Spike, was almost a more famous male than John Travolta. But because she’s my friend and because it’s my job to get gossip items, I asked, “So it shouldn’t be a total loss, first tell me how’s your love life?”

“Please, the guys I go out with are at the age where they no longer take X rays. The doctor just holds them up to the light. One of them took a nap last week and woke up to discover his water bed broke and he doesn’t even have a water bed.”

Right. On to the real reason for my call.

“You need Pat McGregor,” said Joan, switching instantly from the professional comedian that most people know to the loving human being I know. “Pat McGregor will save your life.”

“What’s a Pat McGregor?”

“A trainer. The best.”

“Okay, what’s his number?”

“Not his. Hers.”

“What’s her number?”

I called Pat McGregor on my other line. Her machine was on. She was teaching doggy obedience class that night. I wanted desperately to enroll in her owner obedience class. I had no idea what to do.

Animals have a sixth sense. They say a horse knows if a rider’s afraid of it. Well, this dog clearly understood that its new adopted parent was a klutz. I hadn’t a clue.

“Water. Give her some water.” said Joan.

“What kind of water?”

“Look, we’re not talking Perrier versus Evian here. Water. Plain water. Water water. She’s just made a long trip in by car. She’s probably hungry and thirsty. But the first thing is thirsty. Get her some water. Fill a bowl with water and put it down.”

I was nervous. I probably could have located the proper bowl if I’d had a moment to collect myself, but I couldn’t concentrate. Letters of condolence, sympathy cards, flowers, and messengers and people were arriving steadily. The world was paying its respects to Joey. The doorman kept buzzing and the phones kept ringing. And while I was trying to serve my unexpected live-in and bus the floor in my kitchen, strangers were mixing in my dining room and chatting in my living room.

The kitchen was full of food baskets, trays of cookies, sandwich platters, coffee urns. We couldn’t quickly find a bowl that wasn’t made out of breakable glass or porcelain. My hands pounced on some clean plastic container that had earlier contained a half pound of chopped liver. It was a little deep, but at least if it broke this little dog wouldn’t cut herself.

I filled it to the top and put it down. I also put the dog down. She ran around. She looked like a little rat.

The dog was jazzed up. Running, darting. She ran right into the water. Foreleg smack into the plastic container. It tipped over. Water was everywhere. She now looked like a drowned rat. I was flat on the floor sopping up this river when the house phone announced that Revlon chairman Ron Perelman and actress Ellen Barkin, his wife, were on their way up.

We quickly piled up some cartons in the kitchen doorway so this doglet couldn’t get out and somebody went to fetch some more water and I went forth, smile on my face, pencil in my brain. Because, as Gertrude Stein said, a pro is a pro is a pro. And if Gertrude Stein didn’t say it, she would’ve if she’d thought about it.

In my library sat the Barkin-Perelman pair. Like bookends. Skinny, wearing white shirts and jeans from the same tailor. Speaking of togetherness, they even admitted they had the same-size waistline. The basic difference was Ellen sported a solitaire the size of a pot roast. She also told me she’d just gotten an opera-length string of huge South Sea pearls. “They’re my first,” Ellen said. I had the feeling that with God’s help and Ron’s checkbook they wouldn’t be her last.

Both were dieting. The perfect guests to have, they barely stayed an hour because neither would eat or drink. As they left I heard a sound I had never heard in my home before.

Barking.

When that evening finally and mercifully drew to an end, I was tired. The last half dozen years watching my husband deteriorate had been exhausting. The last fourteen months had been killing. The last month had been draining. The last week had sucked every drop of blood from my veins.

All I wanted was to turn out the lights and pull the covers over my head. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do with my new Guest in the House.

Truth is, I didn’t even know what to do with myself. I didn’t know what to do with my apartment. I’d had so many people sleeping in for so long-maids, nurses, home health-care aides-that I wanted peace. I wanted to be by myself. At this point I wouldn’t let even a close friend stay overnight. I wanted, for the moment, to be by myself. I desperately needed to breathe. To think.

For too long I’d been a caregiver. I’d cared for my husband, Joey. I’d cared for my mother, Jessie. I needed not to care about anything or anybody else for now. I didn’t need to care if some houseguest needed something to eat or needed another pillow or really needed a cup of Ovaltine when all I had in the house was Sanka. I needed not to care for anybody but myself.

But then, two rooms away, I heard the barking.

I walked in and, with one hand, scooped up this frightened puppy. Her heart was beating so fast. She was trembling. She was just like me. Through some power larger than her own she had been wrenched away from the only family she’d ever known. She was all alone in this big world. She didn’t know what was happening to her. She had no idea what the future held. And she was scared.

I understood. I was in the same position. I lay down on my couch and brought her face to face. Nose to nose. Looking her straight in the eyes, I said, “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’re both in the same boat. We’ll take care of one another.”

With that she threw up on my chest. It wasn’t a whole lot because she wasn’t a whole lot. But it was white gook over my throat and nightie. In the instant it took me to stare at the gook and figure out what to grab to wipe it off, the phone rang.

Hillary Clinton.

We knew one another. Years back, while a Marine guard had played the harp outside a private White House dining room, I was teaching her New York street Yiddish. “Schlep” she got right away. “Schmattas” she knew was the word for “rags,” junky clothes. She had a little trouble with the word “schloomp.” She understood that a schloomp was some sloppy person, but the Illinois/Arkansas/New England background kept mispronouncing it. It kept coming out “schlump.” I repeated, “No, Hillary. F’r Crissake, it’s the same sound as ïbook.’ “ Sitting in the White House, to the strains of a Marine guard’s harp, Mrs. Clinton could be heard reciting “schloomp . . . schloomp . . .”

We’d shared a few stories together over the years, a couple of laughs and one or two tears. It was my original scoop-a whole year before she announced the run for the Senate that she was, indeed, going to run for the Senate. Now she was phoning as a friend. Paying her respects. Making the proper bread-and-butter call one makes to another who has just gone through the trauma of a death in the family.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

What am I going to tell her? That this bereaved widow of seven days is crazed? Lying in a pool of gook, struggling to hold onto an itsy, squirming, squiggling, hyped-up, jazzed-up powder puff before her paws ran across me and she tracked the stuff through my house?

We made the usual nobody-quite-knows-what-to-say conversation-keep your chin up . . . there’s life ahead . . . we all have to pay our dues at some point . . . this life is not easy for anyone-and a few minutes later we hung up.

I decided I had to inform my guest that she really shouldn’t repeat what she’d just done. That her behavior really wasn’t acceptable or ladylike. I decided to make a bold gesture before explaining the house rules to her. I lifted her high in the air, high over my head with both hands. Only then did I realize she was no lady.

My She was a He.

And he would not keep still. Souped up, hyped up, jazzed up. And still trembling. I thought to myself, This must be my karma. It’s my duty to be forever a caregiver. Joey . . . Jessie . . . Jazzy . . .

He licked my face.

And I kissed him full on the mouth. “Jazzy, baby, you and me. Together forever.”

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