The Observer I first met Rose at a gallery opening on the Upper East Side. It was October 1963, and the city was that particular shade of gold that only exists in New York in October, when the light is low and honest and everyone pretends it doesn't notice them being beautiful. Rose was standing in front of a painting — some abstract thing that was all angles and aggressive red — and she was looking at it the way I used to look at blueprints before I understood that buildings, like people, are mostly lies dressed up as structure. "Every painting is just numbers wearing a mask," she said, without turning around. "The artist knows this. The viewer pretends not to." I introduced myself. She told me her name was Rose. She was twenty-six, though she looked younger — not in the artificial way that was fashionable, but in the way that suggested she hadn't been given much reason to grow up. We dated for three weeks. I noticed small things: she could dismantle a wristwatch and put it back together blindfolded; she hummed a tune she described as "from a place with no name"; she flinched when someone mentioned "childhood." I didn't ask about any of it. She was mysterious, and mystery was a currency I wasn't ready to spend.

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