Uexpected Visitor

        It was 1 p.m. on a sweet-smelling spring day in 1974. I was a Senior in high school and home early, thanks to a district-wide teachers' meeting.

        I’d let our extra-large Great Dane out into his football-field-sized ‘play area,’ one of the perks we’d had built after we remodeled our farmhouse in the center of our fifty-two unfarmed acres.

        Both of my parents were at work in what everyone in our tiny rural town referred to as “The City,” which was over an hour away. I relished the fact that I would be home alone for hours and would be able to memorize my lines for that night’s rehearsal of Fiddler on the Roof at my school.

        But before I could even pull out my script, the silence was interrupted by a quiet tapping at the front door.

        The rule in our house was that when I was home alone, I was not, under any circumstances, allowed to answer the door if someone knocked.

        But I had a massive case of Senioritis. I was on track to be Valedictorian, I had an enviable boyfriend, two months earlier, I’d had the lead in the Senior Play, and I’d been accepted to three amazing music colleges and was awarded scholarships to them all. I was going to be able to fly the coop of this Podunk town very soon, and if someone knocked on our door, I was going to answer it. I wasn’t a baby anymore, for gawd sake!

        The man on the other side of the threshold looked to be in his early twenties. He had an elfin quality to him, with hair that was frizzy and unkempt. His clothes were ill-fitting and odd in that Salvation Army Store kind of way, and although his eyes were clear and blue and looked friendly and approachable, something about them – about him – made a deep-down alarm explode inside of me.

        I wanted to slam the door at once and deadbolt it and make a mad dash to the back door to scream for my Great Dane to come and save me. But I understood that even though he was small for a man, he was definitely bigger than me and could gain entry through the window in the door. My Little Voice said, “Don’t do it.”

        In that same instant, my stage instincts and experience kicked in.

        I gave him a warm, welcoming smile and said, “Hi!”

        He smiled back in an ‘aw shucks’ manner and said, “Hi!” as well. Then he nonchalantly asked, “Hey, are your parents home?”

        Without one missed beat, I said, “Yes!” and kept my oh-so-friendly, perky-perky-perky smile intact. “They’re sleeping at the moment, though,” I told him. “They had to pick my brother up at 3 o’clock this morning from the airport in The City because he just finished up his time in the Marine Corps!” Widening my smile, I added, like a pep rally cheerleader, “We’re so excited to have him home!” I waited a quick moment before saying, “So, actually all three of them are here, but, like I said, they’re still sleeping.”

        I let him have a beat to internalize that before I said, “But, I mean, I can get them up for you, if you’d like.”

        “No, no; that’s okay,” he said and gave me a wave with his hand as he hopped down our porch steps and walked quickly back down the hill to continue on down our deserted country road.

        I could not close and lock our front door and bring in our massive dog fast enough!

        Needless to say, I never shared a word of that story with my parents!

        All I know is that whenever I think back to that encounter, I am ensconced in head-to-toe prickles that whisper ominously to me, “That was a really close call!”

        The good news is that it sure did cure me of ever opening the door again when I was home alone, and it also let me know that I had a real future in the creative and performing arts!