Sometimes living in New York City is like living in a novel about New York City. The shimmered and came into focus for me last week when I attended the memorial service for a man whom I hardly knew, a man whom I met only twice, maybe three times, during, as speakers at the service emphasized, his remarkably full life.

I attended with a friend from whom I'd been estranged for some years. This was a friend whom I'd insulted enough the last time I'd bumped into her that, though my anger may have been justified, I felt it was my responsibility to make the initial apologies. I attended with her, because we are both friendly with the late publisher's wife. Not so friendly, though, that either of us socialized with her and her now-departed husband. You might say we were more than acquaintances, less than close friends, definitely admirers of her grace and intelligence.

My friend and I had arranged to meet a good hour and a half before the service. That way, we would have ample time to patch up and catch up. For our reunion we'd set a sprawling Starbuck's close to the building where the memorial was being held. Despite our wanting to have an hour-and-a-half for ourselves, she was late and, on arriving, spotted someone with whom she'd gone to high school and to whom she had to say hello. And did. For a dozen or so minutes, during which I told myself it was only right that she talk to her old school chum but also during which I resented her taking time away from our conciliatory tete-a-tete..

Nevertheless, we were able to have a conversation that felt as it was simply a continuation of the kind of chat we'd had in the days when we were on good terms. Or, as friendships tend to go in this town, on good-enough terms. And I have to say, while the Starbuck's crowd lounged over their lattes, our talk was relatively mundane what her kids were up to, how she's surprisingly friendly with the husband she's only just divorcing after a long separation, my unsatisfying date situation at a point in my life when everything else is smooth sailing. Nevertheless, the small talk felt like large talk, because there was a tacit but mutual enjoyment to it.

And then there was the memorial service in that vaulted room where Abraham Lincoln has once kicked off a presidential campaign. When we got there, I realized I'd left my umbrella at Starbuck's and had to run back for it. By the time I returned, my friend had staked out two seats in the packed house, and we spent the next few minutes identifying the people in the room whom we recognized and hadn't realized were associated with the deceased. It was some spectrum of well-placed citizens. At the end of our row sat one of the defeated candidates in the City's recent mayoral contest. Among the speakers was a first-rate novelist and a historian with a book on the current bestseller lists.

The man eulogized was someone whom you wanted to have known, a man who'd had an effect on many local lives without ever quite becoming a household name, without appearing much in the papers outside of the publishing-house pages. As his sister, his brother, a stepson, a niece rose to tell stories and read letters from friends and associates who couldn't be there, I kept thinking how everything happening the service for the hulking and cheerful guy to whom I'd been introduced in the street only on a couple of occasions, the reunion with the now ex-ex-friend, details like the forgotten umbrella that necessitated a dash through still-wet streets was registering on me like a chapter in a book about people who lead a certain kind of privileged, often rewarding, frequently stressful, usually stimulating, sometime sad Manhattan existence.

Maybe I was. Maybe, as I go about leading a life in New York City, I am in a novel I'm writing myself into. Maybe all us natives are.

Also by David Finkle:
Coffee house blues
The zen of jay-walking
Changing places
Darkness at noon
Union Square
Making it real
Wake up chillun
Flying the flag
Pleasantville
An ill wind
The absolute place to be
Small change
Memory Loss
The Nail File