"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Summary

Connie's Character and Appearance

Connie is 15 years old.
She has a habit of giggling nervously and constantly checking her appearance in mirrors or other people's faces to ensure she looks alright.
Her mother frequently scolds her for her self-absorption and obsession with her looks, questioning her identity and perceived beauty.
Connie is aware of her attractiveness and places significant value on it.
She lives with her mother, father, and older sister, June.
June is 24 years old and works as a secretary at Connie's high school.
June is described as plain, chunky, and steady, and is often praised by Connie's mother and aunts, which Connie resents.
Connie feels that June excels at tasks and responsibilities that she cannot manage, as her mind is preoccupied with "trashy daydreams."
Connie's father is mostly absent and uninvolved in their lives, primarily focused on work, meals, and reading the newspaper.
Connie expresses strong negative feelings towards her mother, sometimes wishing for her death and her own to escape the situation.
Connie's voice is described as high, breathless, and amused, giving the impression that her words are somewhat artificial.

Connie's Social Life and Escapism

June's regular outings with her equally plain and steady girlfriends provide Connie with the freedom to socialize without her mother's interference.
Connie and her friends are driven to a shopping plaza in town, where they spend time walking through stores, going to movies, or simply loitering.
Their attire typically consists of shorts and flat ballerina slippers, adorned with charm bracelets that jingle as they move.
They engage in secretive whispers and laughter, often directed at people they find amusing or interesting.
Connie's long, dark blond hair is a striking feature that attracts attention.
She styles her hair in a way that is both youthful and sophisticated.
Connie presents herself differently depending on her location—one way at home and another in social settings.
Her walk varies from childlike and bouncy to a more languid and seductive gait.
Her mouth is usually pale and smirking but becomes bright and pink when she goes out.
Her laugh is cynical and drawling at home but high-pitched and nervous elsewhere, resembling the jingling of her charm bracelet.
Occasionally, they go shopping or see a movie, but sometimes they venture across the highway to a drive-in restaurant popular among older teenagers.
The restaurant is shaped like a large bottle and features a revolving figure of a grinning boy holding a hamburger.
One night, they daringly cross the highway and are immediately invited over by a boy from their high school, whom they dismiss.
They navigate through the maze of parked and cruising cars towards the brightly lit restaurant.
The restaurant is described as a sacred place that offers them the haven and blessings they crave.
They sit at the counter, legs crossed at the ankles, shoulders tense with excitement, and immerse themselves in the music.
The music is a constant backdrop, providing a sense of comfort and reliability.

Encounters and Developing Feelings

A boy named Eddie approaches them and engages in conversation. He asks Connie if she wants something to eat. She accepts and arranges to meet her friend later.
As Connie walks to Eddie's car, she notices a boy with shaggy black hair in a gold convertible staring at her.
The boy grins, wags a finger, and says, "Gonna get you, baby."
Connie spends three hours with Eddie. They eat hamburgers and drink Cokes at the restaurant and then go to an alley.
When Eddie drops her off, she sees her friend talking to a boy. The girls exchange smiles, and Connie asks about the movie, to which her friend replies, "You should know."
Connie reflects on the darkened shopping plaza and the circling cars at the drive-in restaurant.
She can no longer hear the music from that distance.
The next morning, June asks about the movie, and Connie responds with a dismissive, "So-so."
Connie goes out several times a week with that girl and occasionally another girl and spends the rest of her time dreaming about boys.
All the boys become a single, faceless idea associated with the music and the humid night air of July.
Connie's mother frequently interrupts her daydreams, bringing her back to reality.

Family Dynamics and Tensions

Connie distances herself from girls her mother disapproves of, and her mother naively believes her.
Connie considers her mother simple-minded and feels guilty for deceiving her.
Her mother spends her time gossiping on the phone with her sisters, complaining about each other.
June is always praised, while Connie is criticized.
Connie believes her mother favors her because of her beauty, but they maintain a facade of frustration and exasperation with each other.
Occasionally, they share moments of camaraderie over coffee, but their relationship is often disrupted by petty annoyances.

Isolation and Foreboding

One Sunday, Connie skips church and washes her hair to let it dry in the sun.
Her parents and sister attend a barbecue at an aunt's house, but Connie declines.
Her mother makes a snide remark before leaving.
Connie sits in the sun, daydreaming about the previous night with the boy.
She romanticizes the experience, contrasting it with what June might imagine.
When she opens her eyes, she feels disoriented and detached from her surroundings.
Her house looks small and unfamiliar.
She seeks refuge inside and turns on the radio to escape the silence.
She listens to XYZ Sunday Jamboree, singing along to the songs and enjoying the music.
She feels a sense of joy emanating from the music, filling the room.
A car approaches, startling her because it is too early for her father's return.
The car is an unfamiliar gold jalopy.
Connie's heart races, and she frantically checks her appearance before approaching the door.
A car stops at the side door. As Connie approaches the door, she sees two boys in the car.
She recognizes the driver as the boy from the restaurant with shaggy, black hair. He grins at her and asks if he's late.

The Encounter with Arnold Friend

Connie responds with hostility and feigns ignorance.
Arnold Friend persists, inviting her for a ride and complimenting her appearance.
Connie remains skeptical and questions his identity.
Arnold Friend introduces his friend, Ellie Oscar, who is holding a transistor radio playing the same music as inside Connie's house.
Connie acknowledges the radio program and its host, Bobby King.
Arnold Friend entices Connie with the music and claims it knows where the action is.
Connie blushes, unsure if she likes him or not.
She asks about the writing on his car.
Arnold Friend carefully opens the car door and introduces himself. His name, ARNOLD FRIEND, is written on the side of the car with a drawing of a grinning face wearing sunglasses.
He introduces Ellie Oscar as shy.
Arnold Friend explains that the numbers 33, 19, and 17 on the car are a secret code.
Connie is not impressed.
The car has been damaged, and the phrase DONE BY CRAZY WOMAN DRIVER is written around it.
Connie laughs, pleasing Arnold Friend.
Arnold Friend invites Connie to see more of the car, but she refuses.
He persists in asking her to go for a ride.
Connie claims she has things to do.
Arnold Friend laughs, leans against the car, and comments on her attire.
He is dressed in tight jeans, scuffed boots, a belt, and a soiled white shirt.
He appears muscular and as if he does hard work.
His face is familiar, with a long, hawklike nose.
Arnold Friend claims Connie is lying and that she knows this day is meant for a ride with him.
Connie asks how he knows her name.
Arnold Friend says he knows her and remembers her from the restaurant.
He claims he and Ellie came specifically for her.
He suggests Ellie can sit in the back.
Connie asks where they are going.
Arnold Friend removes his sunglasses, revealing pale skin around his eyes.
His eyes are like chips of broken glass.
He smiles, as if the idea of a ride is new to him, then Connie states it is just a ride.
Connie denies telling him her name.
Arnold Friend insists he knows her name and everything about her.
He claims to know her parents and sister are gone and where they are going to be gone, and who she was with last night, and her best girl’s name.
Arnold Friend speaks softly and reassuringly.
Ellie turns up the volume on the radio.
Arnold Friend dismisses Ellie.
Connie asks how he knows all that information.
Arnold Friend lists the names of several kids she knows.
Connie suggests he is not from around here.
Arnold Friend insists she has seen him before but does not remember.
Connie doubts she would forget him.
Arnold Friend is pleased and begins tapping his fists to the music.
Connie examines the car and the expression MAN THE FLYING SAUCERS, an outdated saying.
Arnold Friend asks what she is thinking about and if she is worried about her hair.
Connie denies it.
Arnold Friend asks if she thinks he cannot drive well.
He says she is a hard girl to handle and asks if she knows he is her friend and saw him put his sign in the air when she walked by.
Arnold Friend draws an X in the air.
Connie closes the screen door and stares at Arnold Friend.
He stands stiffly relaxed with one hand on the door handle.
She recognizes his clothes, smile, and mannerisms, but they do not come together.
Connie asks how old he is.
His smile fades. She realizes he is older than a kid closer to thirty.
Her heart begins to pound faster.
Arnold Friend says he is her own age or maybe a couple of years older, eighteen.
He grins, and the lines appear at the corners of his mouth.
His teeth are big and white, and his lashes are thick and black.
Arnold Friend seems embarrassed and looks over at Ellie.
He describes Ellie as crazy, a nut, and a real character.
Ellie is still listening to the music, his sunglasses concealing his thoughts.
He is wearing an unbuttoned orange shirt, revealing his pale, bluish chest.
His collar is turned up around his chin.
Connie describes Ellie as strange.
Arnold Friend repeats her words to Ellie and pounds on the car to get his attention.
Ellie turns around, and Connie is shocked to see that he is not a kid either—he looks like a forty-year-old baby.
Connie feels dizzy and stares at him, waiting for something to change.
Ellie’s lips move with the words of the music.
Connie faintly suggests that they should leave.
Arnold Friend questions why. He reminds her that it is Sunday and they came to take her for a ride.
He has the voice of the man on the radio.
Arnold Friend says that regardless of who she was with last night and today, she is with him.
He tells her to step outside.
Connie says she has things to do.
Arnold Friend insists they are not leaving until she comes with them.
Connie refuses.
Arnold Friend warns her not to fool around.
He puts his sunglasses on top of his head, revealing what seems like a wig.
Connie feels dizzy and fearful. She believes he drove up the driveway but came from nowhere else and belongs nowhere.
Everything about him and the music seems only half real.
Connie threatens to call the police if her father comes.
Arnold Friend says he is at a barbecue.
Arnold Friend knows that her parents are at Aunt Tille's, and offers disturbing details about their activities, e.g. sister in a blue dress and high heels, and mother is helping some fat woman with the corn.
Connie cries out when he mentions a fat woman.
Arnold Friend tells her that he likes her the way she is, and smiles at her sleepily.
Arnold Friend tells her what she's going to do: come out the door, sit up front with him, and assures her that he's her lover.
Connie denies that he is her lover.
Arnold Friend insists that he is her lover and knows everything about her: it is real nice and asks that she could not ask for anyone more polite.
Then Connie backs away from the door, covering her ears and muttering that people don't talk like that.
Arnold Friend pauses, almost falls, but catches his balance by grabbing a porch post.
Connie says that she is going to call the police.
Arnold Friend then begins to smile from inside of a mask, a mask that runs out as if he has forgotten his throat.
Tells her he is not coming in there but she is coming out here.
Connie rushes forward and tries to lock the door.
Arnold Friend says to Connie that the door is just a screen door, just nothing, and he can get through everything, especially Arnold Friend.
Then Arnold Friend offers Connie a situation to think about, in which if the place got lit up with fire, she would come running to him.
He incorporates words from a song from last year about a girl running into her boyfriend's arms; Connie stands barefoot on the linoleum floor, staring at him.
Connie asks what he wants and he responds that it's her.
Her father's coming back and she washed her hair for him.
He then goes on to say that it was him she washed her ahir for.
Ellie asks if he should pull out the phone.
Arnold Friend tells him to shut his mouth because this isn’t his business.
He doesn't have plans to go into the house where he doesn't belong but just waits for her to comes out to him.
Connie repeats that he is crazy and backs away from the door so he cant come in.
Arnold Friend says if she comes out he will take her to a nice ride, but if she doesn't all her people will be hurt.
Ellie is told to not mind them, that it all belongs to them.
Arnold Friend invokes an old women down the road (that he claims she got against) to influence Connie to surrender.
But promises he will not make it last long; promises she will like him soon after because it's all over for her there.
Then she turns and runs into the back room and picks up the phone (because he mentions harm to her family).
As does because she feels that all sense is lost.
She kicks the phone away from her after she screamed in the phone.
In a gentle-loud voice, Arnold Friend says that there is no place to run or remember for Connie now.
Friend tells her that where she is at is only cardboard box that he can knock down any time.
Arnold Friend said that he'd have his arms tight around her so she wouldn't need to try to get away, and that then he'd show her the sensation/reality of love.
A metaphor of solidity used to describe her emotions.
Ellie told to put that away
Not angry, incantation kindly
*Corn and hotdogs with burst over an outdoor fire; they don't know anything about her, have never did, honey, etc etc…. all while the words are not angry, but an incantation.
He opened his arms and let his elbows point in, and wrists limp, so he wouldn't make her self conscious.
She watches herself push the door pen. And she looks safe in the other doorway, and observes herself moving into the sunlit reaches for Arnold Friend.