Tao Lin - Richard Yates

During the two months Haley Joel Osment was in Florida he visited Dakota Fanning twice.

His first visit was in late August. He arrived at night and Dakota Fanning met him on the platform wearing a blue dress and high heels. He hugged her and said her body felt warm and that she looked sexy. They walked past the playground to the Delaware River and lay on their backs on the concrete slab and asked each other questions about people they liked in elementary and middle school. “I feel extremely alert and calm and interested,” thought Haley Joel Osment. “I haven’t felt this way before while with someone I think. The moonlight here seems like sunlight a little.” They kissed and began to touch each other. Dakota Fanning said people would see. Haley Joel Osment said it would be good if people saw. “I’m sorry,” said Dakota Fanning later. “I was being scared again.” They rented a car and drove to the top of a mountain and to New York City. They baked organic vegan biscuits for Aladdin. They went in the woods to look at tadpoles and had sex by a pond and Dakota Fanning removed her underwear which had a little blood on it from the end of her period. Haley Joel Osment said they should put it in the mailbox of the person who raped her and she grinned and said “No, that’s mean” and Haley Joel Osment felt strange and calm and very quiet a few hours. Their last night together they went to the ledge around midnight and had sex. “Did your mom ever see your room on Wall Street?” said Dakota Fanning on the street walking to her house.

“No,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Dakota Fanning.

“It was good,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“I liked it,” said Dakota Fanning.

“We’ll never be in that room again,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“Japan has a lot of rooms without windows probably,” said Dakota Fanning.

A police car came toward and went past them.

“What if the policeman yelled ‘fuck you’ at us?” said Haley Joel Osment.

In Dakota Fanning’s room they listened to music and said the names of people they both knew and then drew those people at the same time and then showed each other what they had drawn. Haley Joel Osment saw something in the corner and held it a little while Dakota Fanning was in the bathroom. It was the heart monitor she stole a few weeks ago. She hadn’t brought it to his apartment. “I never asked about it,” thought Haley Joel Osment. “She probably thought I thought it was stupid that she wanted it.” Around 3:00 a.m. they left for the train platform. Haley Joel Osment walked without touching or looking at Dakota Fanning. He was thinking that she didn’t offer to carry his bag. She had offered other times and was now doing less. Next time she would do even less. “Don’t think that,” he thought staring ahead. “Should I not think that? What should I think then?” Dakota Fanning stopped walking and cried on the sidewalk with her arms at her sides. Haley Joel Osment turned and walked to her and said “Think about what you want to do then either do it or don’t do it, just choose something and do it.” She carried Haley Joel Osment’s bag with her shoulder and held him and looked at his face with an expectant facial expression as they walked toward the train. He did not look at her or reciprocate her touch. After a few minutes he looked at her and said “Thank you for carrying my bag” and they walked to the train with their arms around each other.

His second visit was in mid-September. Dakota Fanning had bought a fish and he asked why she did that if she didn’t have time to do other things. The next afternoon he said more things about the fish. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Dakota Fanning. “I went to feed it this morning and it was floating upside-down.” They looked for room-for-rent flyers in diners and cafés using Dakota Fanning’s mother’s car which she had begun letting Haley Joel Osment drive. They found someone named Sean Strub who was renting two rooms above an upscale restaurant he was reopening soon. The restaurant had a gravel parking lot and was in a forested area by a river. Haley Joel Osment chose the smaller room. “I’m happy you’re moving here,” said Dakota Fanning on the drive to her house.

“Me too,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Sean Strub.”

“I’m sorry I never found you an apartment before.”

“It’s okay, you tried,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Don’t worry.”

He patted her thigh and leaned toward her and they kissed.

As they were leaving the car Dakota Fanning sang lyrics to a song they had been listening to on repeat. In the kitchen she smiled at Haley Joel Osment and gave him a cup of water. Haley Joel Osment held the cup and said he felt bad when she sang the lyrics. She stopped smiling and looked down without moving her head. “I wasn’t thinking,” she said after a few seconds.

“I know,” said Haley Joel Osment. “People sing like that when they aren’t focused on anyone except themselves. It makes the people around them feel alone. Do you understand why a person would feel bad about that?”

Haley Joel Osment went to Florida and put things on eBay and read a Richard Yates novel that ended with an alcoholic man’s ex-wife visiting him in a mental hospital asking what he’ll do when he leaves, causing him to display a confused facial expression because he had not considered ever leaving, after which a nurse wheels him to his room. Haley Joel Osment returned to New Jersey after about a week and stayed a few days in Dakota Fanning’s brother’s room. Dakota Fanning’s brother had returned to college. Dakota Fanning’s mother had offered the room to Haley Joel Osment for $300 a month but he and Dakota Fanning had decided it was better if he lived somewhere else. His room above the restaurant was $400 a month and about a twelve-minute drive to Dakota Fanning’s house and a ten-minute walk to the closest town which had a health food store, a post office, a restaurant called Chang Mao. Dakota Fanning said she could ride her bike to visit Haley Joel Osment each day after school. She said her mother wouldn’t let her but she could do it anyway. Haley Joel Osment thought he could walk to her house some days. “It would take maybe eighty minutes,” he thought. “I would listen to music while walking.” October 1 they bought two twin-size mattresses that were stained and a little moist for $35 from a yard sale. They bought waterproof mattress from Wal-Mart. They cleaned the mattresses using sponges and detergent and set them upright in Haley Joel Osment’s new room with the windows up. Dakota Fanning was wearing a green dress from H&M. They photographed each other hiding in cardboard boxes. They drove to Dakota Fanning’s house. The next night Haley Joel Osment was alone in the dark on his new bed. His internet wasn’t working. He had bought a computer off eBay for $250 and the monitor was on a cardboard box by his bed. In a corner was a Martha Stewart clothing rack from Wal-Mart. By the door was a $40 mini-refrigerator from eBay. The room was very quiet except sometimes a car passed outside. It was Sunday. The restaurant downstairs had not yet reopened.

“I’m so alone here,” said Haley Joel Osment the next day on the phone.

“Do you want me to ride my bike there?” said Dakota Fanning.

“Your mom,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“I can get there in forty minutes and stay for like an hour and come back.”

Haley Joel Osment made a noise.

“It doesn’t seem worth it,” he said.

They made plans to attend a two-day film festival that weekend.

Saturday afternoon Dakota Fanning’s mother drove Dakota Fanning to the restaurant. Dakota Fanning gave Haley Joel Osment a glass container of organic tempeh, brown rice, onion, hijiki and he put it in his mini-refrigerator. They walked toward the film festival holding hands on a two-lane street between a forest and a river.