Aeronautical designer Robert has retreated to living outside of the big city at the end of his divorce proceedings from his nasty, mean-spirited artist wife, which came after a severe bout with depression. He has taken to lurking in the dark woods at night to watch the seemingly quaint Jenny in her kitchen washing dishes by her curtainless window. Robert is askew and awkward, both at work and in social situations. His wife baits him with malevolent teasing during their divorce meetings.One night Jenny spots him as she burns some stuff in her yard. Through awkward and stilted conversation, she invites him inside, relating to his statement that he has been depressed. She tells him of her belief that sometimes little things - signs - are indications that things are meant to be, or that death is on its way.Jenny shows up at his place of work and, after a dinner together, she continues to oddly appear throughout his days and frequently, oppresively, calls him continuously. Meanwhile he continues treading through the alienation and strangeness of the people around him. He is patient with her until she declares her love for him and tells him that she broke up with her boyfriend, clearly to be with him. He receives a big promotion at work and tries desperatley to get rid of her only to allow her into his house and his bed. Her ex-boyfriend Greg assaults him, her friends are suspicious of him.One night as he drives home Greg careens him off the road and they get into a fight that tumbles down an embankment to the river. Greg falls into the water and Richard pulls him out, leaving him coughing as he gets the hell away. Police visit him and Jenny, who seems to be living with him, as Greg is now a missing person. Richard asserts his innocence, saying that there was no way he could've fallen back into the river.The story moves on from there with more brutality, Greg reappearing, an unexpected act of kindness from a reticent elderly neighbor that ends in tragedy, and twists and turns typical of a Patricia Highsmith story that further ensnares the endlessly confounded Richard in an irreparable web of deceit, forlorness and irrationality, ending with a reslove that fate lets no one escape unscathed and, as his ex-wife declared to Jenny, the fact that some people in your life inevitably bring nothing but poison.