“I gather she can be pretty stubborn.”
“Stubborn doesn’t even begin to describe it. We’ve had to have her therapist on site a few times to figure out how to get past her emotional issues.”
Zachary raised an eyebrow. “Before or after the accident?”
“Both. More often when we first started the show. Then things settled into a routine, and she does well if everything is routine. It’s when something has to change that there’s a problem.”
“Right. That makes sense.”
“Is that everything, then?” Halloran demanded. “I really do have to get back to work here.” He made a gesture to take in all the piles of paperwork on his desk.
Zachary nodded. “I’ll be in touch.” He started to rise from his chair.
“She can’t paint blue,” Halloran said suddenly.
Zachary froze halfway out of his chair, then sat back down. “What?”
“Since her son died, she can’t paint blue anymore. We’ve had her therapist in, and we’re working on it, but it’s damn inconvenient. What do you do with an artist who can’t paint the color blue?”
“What do you do?”
“We can’t put blue on her palette, but we can put purple or green. Each time we film, we put a little less red and yellow in those blends, trying to work back to pure blue. But the woman can’t paint blue skies or water. When you’ve got an artist, who is famous for painting landscapes, and she can no longer paint blue skies or water…”
“But you can’t fire her for that.”
“No. Of course not. That would be discrimination against the mentally ill. We have to find landscapes that don’t include blue. Sunrise and sunset. Trees inside a forest, with no view of the sky. We’ve started throwing in some portraits and still lifes, even though that’s not her thing.”
“Nobody with blue eyes.”
Halloran nodded. “Nobody with blue eyes. Combine that with trying to edit out her verbal tics…”
Zachary raised his brows. “Her tics…?”
“You’ve talked to her?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t repeat a prayer when she was talking to you? For her son?”
“Oh.” Zachary nodded. “May he hold you in the hollow of his hand.”
“That’s the one. We can’t have her saying that every two minutes in the show. It has to be edited out. Every single time. She isn’t even religious. I think she’s an atheist!”
Zachary wrote a few notes in his notepad. “You would say that her behavior has changed since her son died and that you have concerns about her mental stability.”
“That better not get out to the press.”
“No, I’m not talking to anybody about it, just making an observation. I wondered whether you shared any of Molly’s concerns, and it would appear that you do.”
Halloran wrung his hands together briefly. “I hadn’t realized how much we have been accommodating her the last few months. Yes, we’re all concerned. If this show was to tank because of her mental instability…” He shook his head. “It would be very bad for the network.”
Zachary pondered the information he had gleaned from Halloran and the few network employees he had managed to talk to as he scrolled through lengthy Facebook feeds and other social network sites, compiling background on his latest targets of interest.
Isabella’s inability to paint the color blue was intriguing. The first thing that came to mind was that blue was the color to signify the birth of a baby boy. Even as they grew up, pink was for girls and blue was for boys. Neither color was exclusive, of course, and gender norms were changing too rapidly to keep track of it all, but in his mind, and in the minds of his generation and older, blue was for boys. Declan’s room was decorated in shades of blue and Isabella had said that she would never redecorate or repurpose his room. She intended to keep it just as it was. She must have associated her son with the color blue, and that was what prevented her from painting with it.
He had observed the verbal tic without realizing what it was. While annoying, the repetition of the little prayer was appropriate. For someone who was religious, but for someone who was an atheist, or close to it, it was just one more indicator of how deeply she was suffering from the overwhelming pain and guilt at the death of her son.
Zachary’s mind went to his own family, and suddenly he was no longer able to see the screen. He stopped scrolling. For a few seconds, or perhaps longer, all he could do was sit there, with old memories and impressions washing over him, holding him paralyzed. His heart thudded dully in his chest, each beat painful. Why, after all that had happened, was he still alive, still carrying on as if he were a normal person?
He remembered the word that Kenzie had suggested. Not normal, but neurotypical. He liked the flavor of the word. It pathologized people with normal brain patterns, the same way that people with normal brain patterns had been pathologizing the atypicals for hundreds of years.
Thinking this through helped to take him away from the memories. He was able to break out of the clutches of the past and look at his screen once more.
After checking through the feeds of his current subjects of investigation, he searched for Spencer’s and Isabella’s accounts. Unsurprisingly, Spencer’s was sparse. Maybe Isabella had set it up for him, as he didn’t seem the type who would normally use it himself. Facebook was too messy for someone as tidy and orderly as Spencer.
Isabella had a couple of accounts. She had a personal account. He could see Molly and Spencer on her friends list, but mostly, names and faces of people he didn’t know, who had nothing to do with the case. She also had a fan page for The Happy Artist. He didn’t know whether she had set it up and answered fan queries herself. Chances were, it had been set up by the network, and they were the ones managing
