Tao Lin - Richard Yates

The next day he rode the 8:12 a.m. train to New Jersey. When he stepped off the train Dakota Fanning was standing on the platform looking at him with a scared facial expression. She was wearing a new dress she had talked about on Gmail chat. The dress was light blue with white spots.

“You look angry,” said Haley Joel Osment and they hugged.

“I was very afraid and nervous, you took a while to get off the train,” said Dakota Fanning. “I thought you didn’t come. I thought you were lying to me.”

“No,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe you just wanted to get rid of me.”

“But we text-messaged when I was on the train. Did you really think I would lie like that?”

“I don’t know,” said Dakota Fanning with a concerned facial expression.

”We texted like four minutes ago,” said Haley Joel Osment grinning.

“You look really good,” he said. “I like the dress a lot.”

Dakota Fanning was grinning a little. She pointed at a feature of her dress and asked Haley Joel Osment if he liked it. Haley Joel Osment said he liked it. They held hands and walked toward her house. On the steel bridge Haley Joel Osment looked at her face then ahead. “She is really pretty, I feel nervous to look at her face,” he thought. “Maybe that is why she never looked at my face that much. Because she was nervous. Not because she wasn’t interested.”

In her room Dakota Fanning asked Haley Joel Osment if he wanted to use the bathroom. Haley Joel Osment said she could use the bathroom first. “Thank you for asking,” he said. “You’re welcome,” said Dakota Fanning. “I want to take a shower to clean myself.” Haley Joel Osment hugged her and sat on her bed. There were no posters or drawings or photos on the walls. Dakota Fanning returned from the bathroom and Haley Joel Osment pointed at something and said “I’ve never seen this. What is this?”

“It’s been there,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Oh. I don’t remember it.”

“The head spins around,” said Dakota Fanning.

Haley Joel Osment tried to spin the head and it didn’t move. He looked at Dakota Fanning. They grinned at each other. They lay on her bed and kissed. He licked her tongue. “She has bad breath a little maybe, or something, or I do, but I don’t think it is me, but that is okay,” he thought. “I feel happy. She is good now. I should be happy. I am.” Dakota Fanning left the room and returned with lemons. They rubbed the lemons on each other and laughed. They licked the lemon juice and had sex. They put the used lemons in a plastic bag.

“Lemon sex,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“Lemon sex,” said Dakota Fanning.

In the shower she hugged him from behind. They dried each other and put on clothes. Haley Joel Osment said he wanted a small yellow apple. They walked to the health food store. Dakota Fanning bought an organic pear. Haley Joel Osment bought a bag of toasted nori. Dakota Fanning photographed him eating toasted nori. They walked into a residential area. Three teenage boys were sitting on a porch facing the street.

“Hi,” said a teenage boy. “How are you?”

“Alright,” said Dakota Fanning.

“How old are you?”

“25,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Where are you from?”

“Pittsburgh,” said Dakota Fanning.

“No, I mean, what nationality are you?”

“American,” said Dakota Fanning.

“You look and sound German.”

“I thought they were going to ‘jump’ us,” said Haley Joel Osment about a minute later near the steel bridge. “I felt afraid.”

“Why did you think that?” said Dakota Fanning.

“I don’t know,” said Haley Joel Osment and hit Dakota Fanning’s cheek with a rolled-up sheet of toasted nori. She made a sad facial expression. She laughed. Haley Joel Osment photographed her with his cell phone.

In Dakota Fanning’s room the windows were up and it was sunny. They lay holding each other naked under a thin sheet. After a few minutes they were asleep. The wind moved the curtains above their heads. Dakota Fanning’s cell phone rang. It was Pedro. “Oh, why,” said Dakota Fanning. “Oh, shit. Whose pool was he in? That is very terrible. I’m with Haley. Okay. Bye.” She said her friend Travis was epileptic and had a seizure while swimming and drowned. She whispered “What a terrible way to die” in Haley Joel Osment’s ear.

Haley Joel Osment asked how well she knew Travis and she said not that well and they walked to a café near the train platform. Haley Joel Osment bought iced coffee. Dakota Fanning bought sweet chai tea. They sat in a two-seat sofa facing the rest of the café. A man sat at a table and began reading a newspaper. Haley Joel Osment took Dakota Fanning’s hand and put it in his mouth. “I felt like I had to impress that guy,” he said. Dakota Fanning laughed and hugged Haley Joel Osment. “What if your mom comes in?” said Haley Joel Osment. “She won’t,” said Dakota Fanning and called her mother saying she was walking by the river because her friend died and she was sad. After about twenty minutes she and Haley Joel Osment walked across the street to Ming Moon. Haley Joel Osment ordered food to eat on the train.

“Andrew seemed happy today,” he said on the train platform.

“He upped his dosage,” said Dakota Fanning grinning.

Dakota Fanning’s mother called saying Kailey was at their house.

“Does she want to see you because of Travis?” said Haley Joel Osment.

“Yes, probably,” said Dakota Fanning. “I should go.”

Haley Joel Osment sat on a concrete bench and looked at trees and a fence in the distance. The air was warm and he felt cool from the iced coffee. He was holding a novel he didn’t like that much. It was getting dark. He text-messaged Dakota Fanning “I had a good day today, was happy, it is gone forever also.” Dakota Fanning text-messaged “Sad, today was so good, Nicholas Sparks mom, want to hold you.”

A few days later on Gmail chat Haley Joel Osment said he stole DVDs of American Psycho and Husbands and Wives from Virgin Megastore. “You’re good,” said Dakota Fanning. “I’ve been planning something. I’m going to steal the raft from Price Chopper. If I go at night I could steal it. I found a section with no cameras that has big displays to hide behind.”

They made a plan for Haley Joel Osment to visit the next day.

“Once I start working for the wedding photographers I will be rich,” said Dakota Fanning. “My cat just made a scary noise. I didn’t know she was sleeping on the chair next to me. She made a cow noise. A very small cow moo.”

Haley Joel Osment said he wished he were there. He went to his apartment.

The next afternoon Dakota Fanning met him on the train platform and they walked to her house and lay holding each other on the sofa in the living room. The phone rang in the kitchen. Dakota Fanning went in the kitchen. “My neighbor saw you come in the house and called my mom,” she said in the living room. “We’re fucked.”

“Your neighbor,” said Haley Joel Osment. “We’re fucked.”

“I knew we should have used the back door,” said Dakota Fanning.

“You should have just told your mom I was Pedro or someone.”

“Pedro is in Boston,” said Dakota Fanning.

“He could have came back or something.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Can you call her back and tell her I’m Pedro?”

“I don’t know. She won’t believe that.”

“What is wrong with your neighbor?” said Haley Joel Osment. “Why would she do this?” Dakota Fanning said her neighbor stayed home every day and didn’t have anything else to do. Haley Joel Osment said her neighbor was an asshole. “My mom is driving home from work, she’ll be here in around forty minutes,” said Dakota Fanning. “She said she wouldn’t call the police if we both stayed here.” Haley Joel Osment said her mother probably said that so the police could capture him easily. Dakota Fanning said she didn’t think her mother would do that. They went through a hallway to a room with two desks and many boxes of papers. Haley Joel Osment sat on a chair. Dakota Fanning sat on Haley Joel Osment. They looked at photos of Dakota Fanning’s family they had looked at on different days including one of Dakota Fanning in a pink ballerina suit. Haley Joel Osment thought about a room in the house he grew up in that also had boxes of papers, two desks, two windows with shut blinds. He thought that how he felt about that room was maybe similar to how Dakota Fanning felt about this room.