What I noticed about Lilly the day I met her was what worked for her out in the world: she looked like she belonged inside a nice quiet house somewhere. She had what you’d call regular features, everything even and proportionate. She always wore solid colors and knee-length skirts, and people paid her no mind. I admired that about her, because she was doing exactly what she needed to do. Even the rare person who did notice her didn’t get bent out of shape. There was no way he could. You couldn’t blame Lilly for taking pictures any more than you could blame a pigeon for pecking at a crumb of bread.

24. Kyle, New York, 1954

I saw this photo for the first time on the back of a book when I was fourteen, babysitting for a neighbor. Rude Poems by Kyle Mackinaw was stashed along with the Kama Sutra: Amorous Man & Sensuous Woman and The Function of the Orgasm beneath some argyle socks in a dresser drawer. I noticed the photo (good-looking, mysterious) without noticing the photo credit. At the time, I’d been more interested in the Kama Sutra, which had dirty illustrations. But six years later, Kyle Mackinaw’s photograph came back as a poster in the college dorm room of a pale boy named Sebastian who I had designs on. At the time, I’d thought the poster meant Sebastian was literary, but then I read Rude Poems and realized it probably meant he was gay.

I had the book half a semester before noticing the name L. Preston in tiny type along the photo’s left-hand edge. When I called Lillian in Cleveland to ask her about it, she said she had a copy of Rude Poems somewhere. No, Kyle Mackinaw hadn’t asked her permission, but she’d given him the photo; and as far as she was concerned, that meant he could do with it what he wanted. I told her about the poster, and she was quiet for a few seconds before telling me that my friend had good taste. When I suggested there might be money in it for her, she laughed. Was I, of all people, encouraging her to take something to court? I never mentioned it again.