Plot Overview

Connie, fifteen, is a pretty girl, obsessed with her appearance, lost in daydreaming, flattered by boys' attention. Connie likes spending time with her friends at shopping centers and cafes. On one of the evenings out she catches a weird phrase “Gonna get you, baby” from a man in a gold convertible, but soon she forgets this incident, not knowing about the consequences of this fatal meeting…

One Sunday her parents and sister leave her at home alone while they go to a family barbeque. Suddenly the gold convertible with the same man shows up on the driveway. The man, whose name is Arnold Friend, begins talking to her and invites her for a ride. There is another man in the car, Arnold's friend Ellie. Firstly, Connie tries to be calm and hide her fear, and she refuses to go anywhere. The situation gets creepy when it starts to seem like this Arnold has been spying on her, as he knows her name, her friends, her family and that she is home alone. What is more, though he is dressed like a teenager and claims to be the same with the girl’s age, Connie notices that something is wrong, that it’s a lie: he looks much older. As Connie gets more scared, Arnold becomes more persistent and unpleasant, and all of a sudden he claims her to be her lover, and that is when a horrifying awareness comes. He threatens to come to the house if she calls the police, he says that he wants her and that she will give in to him, finally he threatens he will hurt her family if she does not obey.

Connie runs from the door and grabs the telephone. In a rushed, blurry scene, something happens: Connie is sweating and screaming for her mother; she can’t dial the phone; and Arnold is “stabbing her . . . again and again with no tenderness.” Oates does not say exactly what happens, but at the end of the scene, Connie is sitting on the floor, stunned and terrified.

She thinks to herself that she will never see her mother again. At Arnold's command, she stands up. She feels as though she is watching herself walk toward the door, open it, and walk outside toward Arnold. Connie looks out at the vast expanses of land behind him and knows where she is going.