Where are you going, where have you been? – Connie's Choice I think Connie opened the screen door because she wanted to escape her life with her family into some kind of fantasy. I think there were other reasons too, but the story points to this in many places. First of all, Connie wasn't happy at home. The story goes that her father "was away at work most of the time" and "didn't bother to talk to them much", so Connie received no love from him and had to seek male attention elsewhere. Connie found her happiness by running away with her friend to the drive-in restaurant and daydreaming about boys. But the happiness he found in both of these things had nothing to do with the actual events; It's based on a fantasy. When she was at the drive-in with a boy, her face shone "with a joy that had nothing to do with Eddie or even this place; it could have been the music." When he daydreamed about the boys, they would all "fall back and dissolve into a single face that wasn't even a face, but an idea, a feeling mixed with the urgent rhythm of the music..." A theme that runs through this story is that music seems to be the bridge from the real world to Connie's fantasy world. He doesn't know what he wants, but it has something to do with "the music that made everything so beautiful." When Arnold Friend came up the driveway, Connie was listening to music, "bathed in a glow of slow-pulsing joy." He soon discovered that he was listening to the same music in his car. This is no coincidence; I think it creates a connection deep in Connie's mind. And the story goes that it seemed to Connie that Arnold "came from nowhere" and "didn't belong anywhere" and that everything about him "was only half real." I think in some strange way Arnold becomes Connie's way to escape into her fantasy. When she discovers his true intentions she is initially scared to death, but eventually that fear gives way to "an emptiness." Connie thinks, “I won't see my mother again... I won't sleep in my own bed again"..