There’s a crashing sound, and then thundering steps overhead. My heart goes into overdrive, but when I look at Bishop again, there’s a slow smile spreading across his face. The thudding becomes louder and louder until my fears are confirmed, and a rottweiler barrels to the top of the spiral staircase, a frantic mass of meaty limbs tripping over each other in their desperation to reach us. The dog regains its footing and charges down the stairs two at a time.
Every one of my instincts tells me to run, but something about Bishop’s smile roots me in place. Still, I recoil as the large dog approaches and Bishop still doesn’t use his magic against it. And when the dog is just one leap away, I can’t help the scream that escapes me.
The rottweiler jumps up against Bishop’s chest, and delivers sloppy kisses all over his face.
What the … ?
Bishop kisses the dog back, murmuring, “Good puppy,” and “That’s my baby,” into its fur. I relax my shoulders a tiny bit, but my heart still races as Bishop finally straightens and pats the dog on its head. “All right, Lumpkins, that’s enough.”
When he faces me, my mouth is hanging open.
“What?” He adjusts his shirt, which twisted up during the lovefest.
“Is that … ?” I gesture hesitantly at the dog.
“The dog from the theater? Yes.”
“And his name is?”
“Lovey Lumpkins.”
“But …”
Bishop scratches the dog behind the ears, and Lumpkins’s eyes loll back in his head. “But he needed a home, and I just happened to have one.”
“But he’s evil.”
Bishop draws back like I’ve just insulted his mother. “Indigo Blackwood.”
“He tried to kill Jezebel!” I cry, though now that I think it over, that is one of his most endearing qualities.
“That was before,” Bishop says, and bends low to hug the dog around his thick neck. “And plus, Frederick made him do it. He’s learned his lesson. He knows not to mess with Daddy. Isn’t that right, Lumpkins?”
“Daddy?” I laugh, because this is just too ridiculous.
“You hungry, or should we just get started?”
I shake my head to snap out of the spell this sight has put me under. “No, I’m not hungry.”
Bishop straightens and hikes up his pants. “All right. Follow me.”
He leads me upstairs, and down a wide, light-filled corridor, Lumpkins following disconcertingly close on my heels.
When Bishop opens the door to what has to be an office, Lumpkins runs inside and hops up on a leather couch, curling into a slightly less intimidating ball. I decide he’s okay for now, and enter.
Pale sunlight streams in through ceiling-high arched windows, lighting the room in soft white. The walls—or rather, the tiny cracks visible around the collage of random framed pictures of every shape and size that clog the walls—are such a rich shade of gray that they almost appear black. The leather couch Lumpkins rests on is pressed against one wall; opposite it is a long black desk, flanked on one side by a potted ficus tree and on the other by a tall, skinny bookcase with an odd assortment of items like a broken globe, a battered copy of Catch-22, and what appears to be a bowling trophy. A fluffy bearskin rug covers the dark wood floor, and beanbag chairs in every color cushion the corners of the room.
It’s so Bishop that if I hadn’t seen the naked mermaid fountain outside, this room alone would convince me that this really is his mansion and he isn’t playing a trick on me.
I crane my neck to see the framed pictures that reach all the way to the ceiling, trying to assign a common theme to the randomness. There’s a giraffe, a woman’s naked back, the Ramones in concert, a man holding up a huge fish, Britney Spears circa 1999, and a picture of a mountain under the words reach for the top that seems like it would be better suited in a guidance counselor’s office.
“Who’s this guy with the fish?” I ask, pointing to the picture of the man.
Bishop sidles up behind me and leans over my shoulder, so near that his chest brushes along my shoulder blades. A surge of heat runs down into my stomach.
“That’s my uncle.”
“really?” I ask, my voice higher than usual. “The one from Texas?”
He nods.
I examine the picture closer now. The man’s middle-aged, with short gray hair poking out the sides of his baseball cap and a large belly poking out from under his neon life vest. He looks nothing like Bishop at first glance, but when I peer closer, there is something similar in his smile, in the lines around his mouth. I wonder why Bishop lives all alone in Los Angeles when he’s got family in Texas.
“Is he … ?”
“Alive?” Bishop finishes for me. “Yes.”
I want him to elaborate without me having to ask, but he doesn’t go there. In fact, he doesn’t say anything at all. And so then it becomes really strange that he’s still pressed up against me. My heart gallops like a prize racehorse. He must realize how weird this is too, because how could he not?
I swallow. “Do you see each other often?”