Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Dear Diary:
We met in a bar in the Hamptons 34 years ago. She was tall and beautiful and told me she was a writer. I was smitten. We dated and were lovers for five months. I am told this is the length of the average New York relationship.
In the end, we realized that we were not for each other and agreed to part. To make a proper end, we would meet one last time for dinner and to say goodbye.
When dinner was over we walked to the subway entrance at Lexington and 68th. She lived downtown and I lived up. She went down one flight of stairs and I went down the other. It was late, the platforms were mostly empty, no trains came, and it was very quiet.
We stood on opposite sids of the tracks and looked at each other. The light was bright where she was standing, and between us, where the tracks and the pillars are, it was dark. Time passed, but no trains came. We stood and looked at each other across the gap.
It was the saddest moment I remember of my years in the city. Eventually, I could stand it no longer. I went back upstairs and took a cab home.
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