Ted liked what I’d brought, but Karen wasn’t sure. The way they discussed it felt private. “Do you think it’s a good fit?” Karen whispered, to which Ted boomed, “It doesn’t matter. It’s powerful work. It demands our attention.” “Yes, but is it too demanding?” in that same breathless whisper. I hadn’t planned to photograph the two of them, but the light was too good and their strange conversation too compelling. I felt like a child hiding inside her parents’ bedroom late at night. Each time Karen whispered some new concern, Ted grew bolder and she more flushed, until he rose to his feet. “We’ll call it Ostrund and Preston: Two Photographers, Two Views,” he announced, one arm at his side, the other outstretched, his top shirt button straining. Karen nodded, her body limp, her resistance spent. It’s only now that I realize how much their performance depended on an audience. You were too deep into tearing magazine pages into stamp-sized pieces to notice. By the time they’d finished, the floor around you was a carpet of glossy confetti.

Would it have mattered if I’d heard of Ostrund? Would I have then turned down these generous people whose two purchases were the only sales I made? The first half of Two Views was taken up by beautifully composed farm scenes—cows and calves, a duck surrounded by pussy willows—all by Harvey Ostrund, the Ansel Adams of animal photography. At the opening, I was flanked by Ken and his artist friend on one side and Grete and Paul, in a rare joint appearance, on the other. Watching reactions shift from Ostrund’s end of the gallery to mine was like watching the faces of dinner guests with plates of roast chicken being given a raw egg. Karen Ipplinger was right, of course. People want to come home to something soothing, not the difficult beauty of a stained dress or a chapped lip.

On the day Two Views ended, Paul moved out. Grete arrived to help me take the show down in a borrowed convertible, her shirt so wet with tears that I thought she’d been caught in the rain.

KENNETH LOWELL: After our “conversation,” I spent a few weeks trying to catch Lil by surprise, hoping that if we got carried away, nature might take its course, but Lil never let things go beyond a certain point. When I started fantasizing about using force, I knew it was time to stop. Instead of staying home after putting Sam to bed, I started going out. In the years since we had arrived to the neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights had changed. People could now say “the Hicks Street scene” as something other than the punch line to a joke. I started spending time at a bar around the corner from a building where artists rented studio space. I would leave without telling Lil, drink a few highballs, and then come back to see if I’d been missed. Well, I had picked a lousy time to test Lil’s powers of observation, since she was working at all hours to prepare for the Picture Shop show.