Each time a car approached we turned and walked backwards while Liz grinned eagerly and stuck her thumb out. Part of me hoped that Steve and Glenn wouldn't pick us up, that somehow our timing was off or they'd already found someone else to take the extra tickets to the concert.

Or that a sensible, concerned couple with teenage daughters of their own would pull over instead. They'd offer to take us home, Liz would have a change of heart and decide it was the right thing to do. We'd return to our respective times with the crisis with Michelle successfully averted.

Liz whooped with delight as a car slowed and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. It was a long, rust-colored car with a black roof with those elongated s-shaped metal scrolls on the side like a hearse. The guy in the passenger seat had smooth butter blonde hair that fell to his earlobes and pinkish brown tinted sunglasses.

He rolled the window down, lifted his aviators and asked, "Where you headed?"

"We're looking for an adventure," Liz said.

He looked at the driver and the driver nodded. "We've got two extra tickets to see the Stones tonight at the Olympia. Is that adventurous enough for you?"

"Yes!" Liz practically squealed.

I tried to arrange my face into an expression of surprise and excitement.

The blonde guy stepped out of the car, flipped the passenger seat forward and introduced himself as Glenn. Liz rattled off our names as she climbed into the back seat. I peeked past Glenn at the black leather interior, smelled men's cologne and baked-in cigarette smoke and thought, And this is where I die.

There was an awkward shuffle when I thought I'd be following Liz into back seat, but Glenn ducked in behind her and I ended up in the passenger seat next to Steven Rutledge, 22, who I knew from Liz's account and my research, was going to abandon us later and get arrested for selling marijuana. His shaggy sandy brown hair flipped away from his face at odd angles and his drowsy eyes blinked slowly as he registered my presence. I put on my friendliest, not terrified at all smile and he reciprocated with a goofy grin.

"Steve," he said, as he stuck his hand out for a handshake.

I reached over my shoulder for the seatbelt, found nothing and then realized I was sitting on the metal buckle and the lap belt. When I tried to dig the belt out from under my butt, I couldn't manage to get a hold of it and I glanced back at Liz, who unsurprisingly chose not to bother with the seat belt at all. The car was already back on the road and in my heightened state of paranoia, I pressed my palms to the dashboard instead, as if that might save me in an accident. Underneath my hands there was a metal emblem that said "Thunderbird."

"Where you two coming from?" Steve asked.

"The future!" Liz chirped from the backseat.

"Need a hand over there?" Steve asked. Without waiting for an answer, he told me to "Scooch up."

I moved forward on the seat and he dug the seatbelt out and handed it to me. He quietly chuckled and muttered to himself, "These chicks are loaded already."

Steve flipped a metal panel down from the front of the armrest and pushed a button that was hidden underneath. A few minutes later, he pulled the button out. Inside of it was a glowing red coil that he used to light a cigarette.

"What's wrong with Irvan?" Glenn asked Liz.

"Who?"

He pointed at her shirt. She pulled her flannel aside to reveal the N and A on her t-shirt to complete the band's name.

"Ohh, Nirvana," Glenn said. "So Irvan is at peace. Far out."

With his burgundy leather jacket, black turtleneck and black corduroys, Glenn was almost camouflaged back there. He was manspreading due to the limited legroom in the back seat, but appeared otherwise inoffensive. I reminded myself that Liz made it to the Olympia with these guys before, so she would probably make it again.

Steve pulled a chunky, rectangular plastic thing out of the dashboard and handed it to me. "Grab another tape, will you?" he asked and nodded toward my feet.

There was a long plastic case on the floor with a fake wood grain lid that matched the fake wood grain on the center console. I ran my finger along the wrinkled paper 8-track labels. Cream. The Doors. The Velvet Underground. The Rolling Stones. Steppenwolf. Big Brother & The Holding Company. Jimi Hendrix. Deep Purple.

The Deep Purple one was an attention-grabbing bright blue, and even though to me it felt as heavy as a bag of sand, I pulled it out of the case. Steve gave a single nod of approval, pushed the cassette into the dashboard and turned up the volume. Psychedelic sounds poured from the speakers, filled every bit of space in the car and left no room for conversation. I was okay with that. There was an awkwardly long period of silence between each track and occasionally a clicking sound came from the cassette mid-song and Steve would grunt in frustration and smack the dashboard.

Once we were on the expressway, Glenn lit a joint in the back seat. Cold November air ripped through the space where the driver's side window was cracked open. Steve took the blue tape out and asked for another. I handed him a Beatles tape and he took one look at it, cranked his window all the way down and threw it out.

"Try again."

"Carol's?" Glenn asked.

"Screw Carol. And the Beatles." Steve jammed his cigarette into the built-in ashtray. "Find Aftermath, would you?"

"He and Carol just split up," Glenn explained.  "Forget her, man." Glenn leaned forward to pass the joint to Steve. "Tonight is gonna be fine." He stretched out "fine" in a way that changed its meaning from marginally acceptable to like, really good. Far out, even.

I found the Stones album he asked for and handed it over. After a couple of clicks, the eerie, urgent rhythm of "Paint it Black" came through the speakers.

"Vah-nesss-ahhh," Steve exhaled my name in a cloud of smoke and passed the joint to me.

Steve and Glenn were just as Liz described. She may have left out the reason why we had to get a running start on the bridge and the fact we would wind up on a functioning railroad in 1969, but everything she had told me was unfolding according to plan so far.

Everything was going to be fine.

~~~~~~

Olympia Stadium was a red brick fortress that loomed over the surrounding parking lots and neighborhood homes. The line of fans waiting to get inside wrapped around the stadium. It was already completely dark outside. The front of the glowing marquee proclaimed the Olympia as the "Home of the Detroit Red Wings" and the side panel said "The Rolling Stones Mon Nov 24th 8:30 pm." I couldn't suppress the thrill of excitement I felt. This was for real.

While we waited in line, Steve came and went. Liz shivered in her loose flannel shirt and Glenn gave her his leather jacket to wear. Everyone around us smoked and hunched against the cold and chatted excitedly.

Eventually we moved forward, the staff at the entrance ripped our tickets and we stepped into hazy bright light and warmth. I held the hem of Glenn's leather jacket so I wouldn't lose Liz as we made our way through the crowd.

Our seats were one level up from the main floor, on the end of the arena closest to the stage. There were people smoking everywhere and the smell of all the smoke was layered with buttered popcorn, hairspray and cheap beer. Underneath it all, there were the lingering scents of hockey; chilled sweat and crisp ice.

The stage wasn't fancy. The drum kit was on a little platform with a purple satin skirt around it. There was a line of huge amps, some stacked two high, and heavy curtains along the back of the stage.

I expected to see more people dressed like hippies, but the crowd was light on flower power- in their attire, not necessarily in spirit. It was heavy on suede jackets, neutral plaid, headbands, striped sweaters and flared jeans. A lot of the guys had hair that fell in their eyes and skimmed their collars. Only a few women with long, center-parted hair seemed to float down the aisles in floral maxi dresses.

During one of the opening acts Glenn went searching for Steve. He never made it back to our section. During the long breaks between the opening acts, Liz elaborated on her time travel wish list. While it felt strange to talk about time travel surrounded by fourteen-thousand people, I got the feeling nobody would notice or care. Every few minutes, clapping and cheers rose in waves and faded away.

We left our seats to go to the bathroom twice, and both times I shared my caffeine pills with Liz. We were both bleary eyed with exhaustion before the Stones even took the stage.

When the band finally made an appearance and the first guitar chords flowed through the huge amps, it electrified the air and raised my arm hairs. Mick Jagger's movements were jerky as he flipped his long, silky scarf over his shoulder, flicked his long bangs out of his eyes and strutted back and forth across the stage in his skin-tight black outfit, dragging the microphone stand. He kind of reminded me of a chicken.

After the second song, Mick said, "Thank you, Detroit. It's real whistley here, it's real weird," in a drawling, almost exaggerated English accent and the crowd whooped and whistled even more. That moment grounded me to the time and the place and the people around me in a way I hadn't experienced since Pete and I went to a Tigers baseball game that summer. It was something about living a shared experience with thousands of others in a time I didn't belong in and it was magic.

The band launched into the next song, and when Mick sang, "Who killed Jack Kennedy?" it bothered me, nagged and gnawed at the back of my mind for the rest of the show. I'd listened to the live album from this tour enough times to prepare for my trip that I knew he sang the lyric wrong.

During the last song, paper flyers were thrown into the air from the upper levels and floated down erratically. The band walked offstage and didn't come back for an encore. The house lights went up and Liz was smiling blissfully. She drew a check mark in the air as she checked the concert off on her invisible list.

As I followed Liz down our row, I noticed a guy making his way toward us down the row across from ours while watching her with an intrigued one-sided smirk. Paul and Liz met at the center aisle and eyed each other curiously.

He tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket and nodded toward her shirt. "Nirvana?" He raised his eyebrows and offered her a knowing smile.

Liz tucked her hair behind her ear and bit back a shy grin. "A state of perfect happiness," I heard her say through the buzzing of my eardrums.

Paul's ears stuck out a little too far and the purple circles under his eyes and the way his shoulders sloped made him look tired and defeated, somehow, but she looked at him like he was Keanu Reeves or whoever nineties girls thirsted for.

While the sight of Paul chilled the blood in my veins, I didn't have the urge to get away. I felt completely disassociated from what was happening in front of me. I was only a spectator.

Liz and Paul walked side by side along with the stream of people, stepping over crushed popcorn bags and cups, while I slowly got pushed further and further behind them. The noise of the crowd hummed in my buzzing ears. There were too many people and it was too hot and once I made it through the doors the cold air on my face was a relief.

The invigorated fans streamed onto the street and went off in different directions. A freezing mist softened the words on the marquee, scattered headlight beams, and chilled me to the bone.

I spotted Paul and Liz standing together on the sidewalk. Paul leaned in and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes widened and flickered to mine as I approached them and then she turned her back on me. Did she turn her back on her sister, too?

Stars flickered and floated in my field of vision and I reached under my sweater and attempted to unzip the travel belt to get a pack of fruit snacks. As the heaviness overwhelmed me, I accepted that the flashes of light weren't caused by low blood sugar. I sat cross-legged right there on the damp sidewalk and let it happen.

When it was over, the Olympia was gone and the sudden quiet rang in my ears. I was surrounded by empty grassy lots stretching in every direction, dotted with a few houses with mostly darkened windows.

My phone was dead. I was so screwed.