him and get away with it. It seemed crucial that the body never be found. And if that was the case, then I needed to find some things out about Chet.
After the party Chet seemed to disappear for a little while, not coming out of the apartment, and not visiting the house. I did see him one night. He was on the lawn, looking up at my bedroom window. I’d just turned the light off to go to bed, and that’s when I saw him there, swaying a little, like a tree in a breeze. He’d been watching me. I’d left the window cracked and the shade slightly up so that some air got into the room. I felt stupid and afraid, and tears pricked at my eyes, but I told myself that Chet would not make me cry again. I now knew for sure that he was simply biding his time, waiting for a good opportunity to rape and murder me. I did consider telling my mother about what had happened but I thought she’d be on Chet’s side, that she’d wonder why I was making such a big deal about it. And my father was still away with Rose, the poet, and the way that my mother sometimes talked about it late at night, it sounded as though he wasn’t coming back. I asked her once, while she was making a giant batch of hummus in the kitchen.
“Has Daddy called?”
“Your daddy has not called,” she said, spacing the words out for maximum effect. “Your daddy, last I heard, has made a fool of himself in New York, so I expect we’ll see him back here soon enough. You’re not worried, darling, are you?”
“No. I was just wondering. What about Chet? Did he leave?”
“Chet? No, he’s still here. Why’d you ask about him?”
“I just hadn’t seen him. I thought that maybe he’d moved out of the apartment and I could go up there again.” I loved the small apartment above my mother’s studio, with its whitewashed walls and huge windows. There was an old red beanbag chair that had once been in our house and been moved to the apartment. It had a small rip along its vinyl bottom and was slowly losing its little pellets of filling, but I missed it. When the apartment was empty I’d bring books over there to read.
“You can still go up there. Chet won’t bite.”
“Does he have a car?”
“Does he have a car? God, I don’t think so. I don’t even think he has a place to live right now, besides with us.”
“How’d he get here if he doesn’t have a car?”
She laughed, then licked hummus off a finger. “My bourgeois daughter. Darling, not everyone has a car. He took a train from the city. Why are you asking so many questions about Chet? Don’t you like him?”
“No, he’s gross.”
“Ha, now you really do sound like your father. Well, whatever you two think, Chet is a real artist, and we are all doing the art world a huge favor by allowing him some space to focus this summer. Keep that in mind, Lily, that it’s not all about you all the time.”
I had gotten what I wanted to get from my mother. Chet didn’t have a car, and had arrived here by train, which meant that he could easily pack up his stuff and leave for good. That made my job a whole lot easier. I began to prepare, spending time in the meadow next to the old farmhouse, gathering the largest rocks that I could carry. I also made myself visible to Chet, dragging one of the old lounge chairs out to the sunny patch of yard between the main house and the studio. I didn’t want him to keep avoiding me, since it was crucial that he trust me to a certain degree, crucial that we establish some sort of relationship. The first few days when I lay in the sun, reading, my headphones on, Chet did not make an appearance. Once or twice I thought I saw his silhouetted frame in the slatted glass door of the apartment as he watched me. But one day he wandered out to smoke a cigarette, standing on the top landing in his paint-splattered overalls, no shirt on underneath. I peered over the top of the Agatha Christie I was reading and he nodded in my direction, raised a hand. My gut reaction was to ignore him, to not give him the pleasure