Picture me now, if you can, as I attempt to explain to a smiling, oblivious Dorothy, my hands quivering and my pulse pounding, that the two of us came within a finger snap of obliteration.

"Wow!" is her response.

And onward we fly. Dorothy reclines contentedly, her eyes peeled for ships and whales while I fix my gaze on the sky like a crazy person, wondering if in fact I'm still alive. It feels as though a firecracker has gone off in my brain.

Finally at about 5 o'clock we touch down and taxi in. My stomach is sour, my nerves firing in weird jangly salvos. There will be a phone call to make, a report to file, and a six-pack to purchase. I shut down the engine, unbuckle my shoulder harness, and begin to gather my things.

As I do this, Dorothy Meyer sighs and looks at me coyly. It's a kittenish, theatrical expression, similar to the ones she'd been giving me on the island. This time, though, it's more serious. And here is what Dorothy now says to me: "I keep wanting to kiss you."

My head swims. "Um," I say. "But. Kiss me? Who? Why?" How in the world can she not be, as I am, stuck in the throes of a raging and delirious preoccupation with mortality? I am not thinking about kissing; I am thinking about seawater and crushed aluminum.

"I'm sorry," she says. What? Who is she apologizing to? Me? Herself? Logan? For the love of god don't send me careening on a guilt trip, or some hideous game of hard-to-get, while I'm still bug-eyed from a near-death experience. I don't know whether to be aroused or horrified. In fact I am both, and once again I'm helpless, frozen by a vision -- unexpected, unstoppable and dangerous -- coming straight at me. Over now leans Dorothy, across the space between the seats, across the wing flap lever and an empty can of Coca-Cola. And she kisses me.

"Hand in hand is the only way to land..."

Everything goes quiet, and in Dorothy's oversize eyes are only the most serene, unthreatening pools of blue. How can it be? It's as though she's peering at me from some other time, some other age. Wherever it is, I like it there and so I kiss her back. There's little point, believe me, in further attempts to describe the resultant sensations when a brush with the Grim Reaper is followed by an impromptu make-out session with a young, gothed-out fashion model you've had the hots for. If nothing else, it's exhausting.

Dorothy sits sideways on the drive home, her alabaster spindle-legs on my lap. Robert Smith is singing again, the irony of that damn annoying song so rich and irresistible. I gloat silently, triumphantly, about our dalliance with catastrophe -- coming out the other end not just alive but with a sexy girl on my arm. Fuck you, Logan.

Then, just like that, it was over. Back in South Boston we parted, Dorothy providing an affectionate goodbye and a promise to call. Which she did, the next evening around suppertime. She got right to the point, and I wasn't the least bit surprised. By then my faculties had recovered; what 24 hours earlier was a bewildering rush of excitement had become a lethargic adrenaline hangover. Everything felt wrong, ominous and foregone, and my suspicions were quickly confirmed. All of it, Dorothy explained, had been a mistake. She was sorry. Would I please not tell anyone. And so on.

Dorothy and I would continue to cross paths, and she remained an on-again, off-again infatuation of mine before at last we fell out of touch. Now and then I'd bring up our trip to Nantucket, always reminding her how close we came to crashing. Having shared such an immeasurable experience, I thought, might spark some unbreakable bond. Perhaps it would make us lovers, soul mates, friends for life. But it didn't and couldn't, because nothing had been shared. I'm the only one who saw the plane. And the way I described it, always so gravely and intensely, it began to sound like a myth, like a ghost story. And the look on Dorothy's face, every time, leaves me forever convinced that she believes I made it up.

Which I did not.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

It's tough to glance at the calendar every July and not think of that day, now almost two decades past, with a peculiar nostalgia. Because it's no longer the near-miss itself that colors my recollection, but rather its place in time.

No worthy lessons were learned that day. Indeed none presented themselves, beyond a young pilot's self-reminder to watch where the hell he's going. And the story, as I see it today, has nothing to do with danger, fright or having almost been smashed to bits. It has to do with growing old, with the lost spontaneity of youth -- the notion, now so crazy, of stepping into a rented plane with a gorgeous teenager. The almost being killed part? It's funny, even perverse, how in 1986 the close call felt so meaningful, so invigorating, while today it feels like nothing. Memories are a funny thing. The pictures never change, solidifying over time like the scars and knots of a tree, but their messages and poignancy do.

The last time I saw Dorothy was in 1994, on the subway. I was coming from the airport, walking up the stairs to the Church Street exit at Harvard Square. And she was coming down. Still cadaverous, absurd and beautiful, she wore a black leather motorcycle jacket shredded at the elbows, except her hair was now shoulder-length and flaxen. The meeting was, as it could only be, awkward, stupid and cliché. I'm fine and how are you? I thought about the plane, the kiss, the sandy seaside clearing. But I let it go. The important parts, anyway.

"Do you remember," is all I said, "the time you wore fishnet stockings to the beach?"

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