"She’s not coming, man," Miller said, leaning against a wood-paneled pillar. Miller was wearing a leather tie over a Hawaiian shirt—a crime against fashion even by current standards. "The Thompson twins are playing at the arena. Nobody’s coming to a basement synth-pop night when there’s a real concert across town."

"You're leaving?" she asked, her voice small over the distant city traffic.

Elias looked at her—shivering, soaked, and definitely late—and then looked back at the door where the muffled bass was still thumping.

He felt like a fool. This was the era of the missed connection. No cell phones to text a "U here?", no GPS to track a location. You either showed up or you became a ghost.