Tao Lin - Richard Yates

Around 1:20 a.m. Haley Joel Osment was at someone’s house alone in the dark at their computer asking Dakota Fanning many questions on Gmail chat. “I told you everything,” she said. “I didn’t lie. I made a mistake. You’re angry at me. I told you I would disappoint you and I didn’t want to tell you not because I was afraid but because I didn’t want you to get angry and I knew you would get angry so I tried to prepare you but you are angry.”

“Feedback is at 4:00. Tell me exactly what you did from 3:00 to 4:00.”

“I went to feedback like 15 minutes or more early,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Tell me exactly what did you do from 2:40 to 3:40.”

“You are angry,” said Dakota Fanning.

“No I’m not, I said ‘tell me exactly what you did from 2:40 to 3:40’ so I can decide what to do with my life using the facts. If you are lying I need to know that. Tell me so I can sleep.”

“I’m not lying. I feel like you only do this to find lies, that you ask questions just expecting to find something I lied about.”

“Yes, so what? I want to know if you are lying. So what? Tell me what you did from 2:40 to 3:40 please, this is getting stupid. We didn’t just meet. You lied to me for 4 months. If you aren’t telling me I’m going to sleep now.”

“I know,” said Dakota Fanning. “I just didn’t expect to be treated like a criminal in a cross examination. I have to think first so I make sure I don’t forget anything. Okay then. I’m typing.” Haley Joel Osment said he didn’t expect to be treated like an object to be manipulated and that Dakota Fanning should be expected to be treated like shit after lying for four months. “You’re right,” said Dakota Fanning. “I’m sorry I said that. I should expect to be shot in the head really.” She typed what she did before biofeedback which included eating a lot of food without throwing up.

Haley Joel Osment said there still was missing time.

“This is all my fucking fault,” said Dakota Fanning. “I fucked everything up.”

“So are you going to go eat more now?”

“No,” said Dakota Fanning. “I’m going to do my work.”

“I’m going to sleep,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Thank you for at least telling me the truth, but I don’t completely believe it. Thank you for telling me some of the truth.”

“I’m sorry that I’m fucking stupid and have ruined things so much that they are like this now.”

“I’m glad you didn’t just say you exercised or worked when you didn’t,” said Haley Joel Osment

“I’m glad also,” said Dakota Fanning. “I’m glad I didn’t throw up. I thought about throwing up but didn’t.”

The next morning Haley Joel Osment went on a plane to Vero Beach where he was scheduled to be on a panel with his publisher at a book festival. Each participant was provided a room at a Disney resort and a guide. Haley Joel Osment’s guide was a woman in her late 30s who brought him to dinner at a beachside restaurant with her friends who were in their late 40s. Haley Joel Osment said his girlfriend was 17 and his guide’s facial expression changed a little.

“Does your girlfriend plan to go to college?” she said.

“She’s applying to colleges in New York City,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“What does her mother think about you?”

“She likes me, I think,” said Haley Joel Osment looking at the beach.

After dinner they went to a reception. Haley Joel Osment stood by his guide and said he wanted to talk to his publisher but was afraid. She said she also felt afraid.

“Why are you afraid?” said Haley Joel Osment.

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t get out much.”

“What should I do? I don’t want to interrupt him.”

“Just go talk to him, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Haley Joel Osment’s publisher was talking to someone from C-Span. Haley Joel Osment walked toward them while staring at a large buffet of fruit, crackers, breads, cheeses in the distance.

“You should do something on this guy,” said his publisher.

The person from C-Span looked at Haley Joel Osment.

The next day at the book panel someone said it was important to support independent companies because the money returned to the community. Someone said something about North Carolina. Haley Joel Osment said one reason to support independent companies was because they were not existentially required to increase profits.

He went to his publisher’s room and they edited his story collection for about two hours. His publisher said he went to a reading in the ’80s where Richard Yates read a short story using different voices for each character’s dialogue including high-pitched voices for the female characters.

That night at the resort Haley Joel Osment’s cell phone had no reception. He walked to different areas staring at his cell phone. He called Dakota Fanning standing beneath a palm tree in a parking lot. She had gone on a field trip that day to a museum in Manhattan. She said she wrote therapy things in her notebook the entire bus trip there and back, two hours in each direction. They talked for about ten minutes. Haley Joel Osment went to his room and showered and did push-ups naked. He slept. In the morning he paid money to use a computer in the lobby. “At the book panel the party girl and her party agent were party girls,” he emailed Dakota Fanning. “I said anti-party-girl things and the obese party girl said semi-anti-party-girl things. I sold 8 books to old people. One old person kept telling me about her 55-year-old son. After I sold books we sat around at a restaurant. Then we came back to the Disney hotel. I went to my publisher’s room and we edited 50 pages of my book. Then he talked about things. Then he showed me the book covers I sent you on my phone. I felt glad. I hope you had a good day. I’ll call after dinner.”

At the restaurant every entree had meat except one that had cheese. Haley Joel Osment asked for pasta with olive oil. He heard someone telling a story he had heard three times from the same person in the past two days. He finished eating. He text-messaged Dakota Fanning. He stared at people talking and eating. “Whenever an old person is saying anything I think I assume they’re insane, that they’re not making any sense at all,” he thought while an elderly literary agent talked about her steak. “I don’t want to do that anymore I think.”

He went outside and called Dakota Fanning. There were palm trees and hotels in the distance. Sometimes a car went past on the four-lane street. Dakota Fanning said she was making carrot juice. She had found a juicer in the basement and taken it to the kitchen and cleaned it and set it up. Haley Joel Osment became upset that she was not doing exactly what she had said she was going to do at exactly the times she had said she was going to do them. People leaving the restaurant saw Haley Joel Osment’s upset facial expression and he walked away and talked a little more and then sat in a car with five other people.

At the resort on a pebble walkway he called Dakota Fanning and apologized for getting upset earlier. They talked for about an hour about Peter Singer, Sean Strub, Dakota Fanning’s father, hikikomori, moving to Japan when Dakota Fanning turned 18 and Haley Joel Osment sometimes laughed a little or smiled while looking down and stepping on things.

The next day using the computer in the lobby he saw that Dakota Fanning had emailed yesterday a few hours before he called her outside the restaurant. “Do they have a gift shop or something with Disney things around?” said the email. “In the museum I tried to find things I could steal but everything there was shitty and the party girls kept following me. I shouldn’t have gone on the trip. It was terrible. Everyone I went with was an extreme party girl. On the way home I thought about me being surrounded by party girls and you being surrounded by party girls and both of us feeling very alone and afraid on opposite sides of the country. I felt sad but maybe it was funny a little. I bought like 5 pounds of organic carrots to make fresh organic carrot juice because I remembered that we have a new juicer in the basement that no one ever uses. I can make you organic carrot, apple, and ginger juice. I’m going to make some tonight with brewer’s yeast while waiting for your call. I miss you very much.”