In a double whammy of good fortune, I met Nina around the same time that Grandma invited Lillian and I to visit her and Grandpa in the summer. The first time Nina appeared, she brought Chinese takeout. The only restaurant food Lillian brought home was the occasional overdone steak that a customer had sent back. Nina’s first appearance in the middle of February with strange flat-bottomed containers filled with chicken chow mein and egg foo young felt like a visit from a skinny, chain-smoking, seasonally dyslexic female Santa Claus of exotic foods.

While she and Lillian looked at photographs, I ate. Nina was around Lillian’s age but wasn’t married and didn’t have kids, so she felt more to me like a big sister. I could tell she laughed at my barf and fart jokes not to be polite but because she thought they were actually funny. This doesn’t say much for her sense of humor, but when she called me Sammo, it felt gratifying even before I knew about Groucho or Zeppo. Nina tickled me, and read me stories using funny voices, and always brought Chinese, which never stopped tasting like magic, and from the middle of second grade to the last half of fourth, I loved her.

LETTER TO DEBORAH BRODSKY, FEBRUARY 1963: I didn’t know what to make of Nina in the beginning. She’s always so terribly excited about things that she comes across as a phony, but stick around and you realize that she means every word. A conversation with her can be exhausting, but her interest in everything combines with her enormous intelligence to make it a pleasant sort of fatigue.

I wasn’t sure of her motives at first. She clearly liked the photos, but anyone could see she was lonely. However, one nice thing about Nina is that you can be on the level with her, so I simply asked if she wanted to represent me or be my friend, and she convinced me it was perfectly reasonable for her to be both.

The Lacuna Gallery used to be a tailor’s shop. Nina calls the old dressmaker’s dummy next to her desk her silent partner, but actually she uses the storefront in exchange for managing the two upstairs apartments. I get the impression that her neighbors on the block appreciate her rather less than I do. Though Nina’s opinions about women and art and everything else are pretty strong for South Brooklyn, she would have fit right in with our old Tuesday-night crowd.