.

             Connie"s sexual desires are once again revealed through the music one morning when she is home alone. Her family has gone to a barbecue, and Connie "turns on the radio to drown out the quiet" (3). She sat in the sun with her eyes closed and "her mind slipped over onto thoughts of boys . . . and how sweet it always was . . . the way it was in movies and promised in songs" (3). The music is relevant here because Connie is thinking maturely about boys. Her thoughts are sexual and she takes pleasure from them. As Connie listened to the radio, she was "bathed in a glow of slow-pulsed joy that seemed to rise mysteriously out of the music itself" (3). This again shows the familiarity of the music and how it brings Connie joy to act grown-up. She longs to grow older and enjoys every opportunity possible where she has the chance to act with a new and different manner, especially with boys.

             But all of Connie"s fantasies and dreams change just moments later when a car with two older guys pulls into Connie"s driveway. They are strangers to Connie, yet the driver, Arnold Friend, openly expresses his strong feelings for Connie. At first, she is flattered by the stranger"s interest in her and his compliments, flirting back and noticing "the way he was dressed . . . and the hard small muscles of his arms and shoulders" (5). But she soon becomes nervous and uneasy, not sure whether the situation is fun or dangerous. The passenger, Ellie, has a little transistor radio with him and it happens to be playing the same program Connie is listening to in her house. Earlier, she had been enjoying the music, but now when asked about it, she replies, it"s "kind of great," reluctantly (4). This shows how Connie is beginning to change her mind about the adult-world and the relationships she had wished to rush into before. She is startled by these two older men and is not sure if she wants to take the step of joining them and their loud music, symbolic of their world and their open sexuality.