Tao Lin - Richard Yates

The next night they emailed many times about what Dakota Fanning did between 12:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. that day. “I’m not sure if I want to come tomorrow,” said Haley Joel Osment in an email. “I feel uncomfortable when you aren’t nice to me.” Dakota Fanning text-messaged his email account about an hour later that her internet was broken. “I just realized my mom unplugged the router and hid it,” she text-messaged a few minutes later.

“Do you still want to come tomorrow,” she text-messaged.

“I don’t know,” said Haley Joel Osment in an email to her cell phone. “If you want me to.”

“It will just be a waste of your time. You decide. You don’t have to now, you can tell me tomorrow.”

“I won’t go then if you don’t want me. You decide.”

“I want you to come,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Okay,” said Haley Joel Osment. “I’ll come.”

Around 3:30 p.m. Dakota Fanning’s mother drove onto the gravel parking lot. Haley Joel Osment was standing outside. He sat in the backseat and Dakota Fanning’s father smiled at him and said “Hi” from the front passenger seat.

“Hi,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Thank you for inviting me today.”

“Where’s your brother?” he said to Dakota Fanning.

“We don’t know where he is,” she said.

They talked quietly in the backseat a few minutes. Haley Joel Osment saw Dakota Fanning’s mother looking at his upset facial expression in the rearview mirror. She looked away. “Remember what I said about whispering?” she said. “Dakota?” she said.

No one talked for about twenty minutes.

They arrived at Dakota Fanning’s uncle’s house in Goshen. About ten of Dakota Fanning’s relatives were standing in the kitchen. Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning stood near the front door looking down.

“I shouldn’t have come,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“I know,” said Dakota Fanning. “I shouldn’t have made you come.”

Haley Joel Osment thought about saying something about that.

“Can we go outside?” he said and they moved toward the door.

“Where are you going?” said Dakota Fanning’s mother.

“We’re just going outside for a minute,” said Dakota Fanning.

“No you aren’t,” said Dakota Fanning’s mother. “That’s rude. Come inside and mingle. Have you talked to your uncle Mark yet? You know these people. Introduce them to Haley. I’m sure they’re all really interested in meeting your boyfriend.” She stared at Dakota Fanning. She looked at Haley Joel Osment. She walked away.

“Let’s just stay inside,” said Haley Joel Osment.

They went upstairs into someone’s room. Haley Joel Osment sat on the edge of a bed and Dakota Fanning stood facing him. “What did you do between 12:00 and 4:00?” he said after about ten seconds.

“I told you everything,” said Dakota Fanning.

“You worked for thirty minutes then went to the store for an hour. What about the other two hours?”

“I told you everything. I didn’t lie. That’s all I remember.”

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

“I didn’t lie,” said Dakota Fanning.

“What did you do for two hours?”

“I bullshitted around a lot. I told you what I did.”

Haley Joel Osment stood from the bed and sat cross-legged on the carpet facing away from Dakota Fanning. “If I were you I would calmly think about what I did,” he said. “And then say it calmly so I won’t feel worried about if you’re lying or not.” He opened The Myth of Neurosis and turned the pages. The book was upside-down. He turned it over and stared at the words. He stared at the paper. “I finished the work,” said Dakota Fanning standing behind him. “Then I went downstairs to make coffee. After that I decided to go for a bike ride. I told my mom I was going for a bike ride.”

“What did you do while the coffee was making?”

“I ate an apple,” said Dakota Fanning and was quiet for about ten seconds. “I decided I didn’t want to ride my bike. I wanted to go for a walk. Then I went to talk to my mom to tell her I was going for a walk. I went back upstairs to get change and a dollar because I thought if I was going to steal something it would be better if I bought something also. I was probably gone for about fifty minutes. I looked in CVS for a while until I found something small and expensive. I found the skin creams and I took two.”

Haley Joel Osment stood. He sat on the edge of the bed.

Dakota Fanning stood facing him looking down a little.

“If you were gone for fifty minutes and you worked for thirty minutes then there would still be two hours where I don’t know what you did,” said Haley Joel Osment staring at the carpet.

“What time did I wake up?” said Dakota Fanning.

“Did I wake up at 10:00 or 11:00?” she said.

“Didn’t you have a half day of school?” said Haley Joel Osment.

“Yeah. We have the times wrong then. I didn’t start doing the work until 12:15.”

“Then just add fifteen minutes. I still don’t know what you did for two hours.”

“I must have bullshitted around for a long time then. I told you everything.”

“Don’t say ‘bullshitted.’ That doesn’t mean anything. You should tell me exactly what you did, not just say ‘bullshitted.’ ” There were noises outside the room. Dakota Fanning’s mother came in looking at Haley Joel Osment then Dakota Fanning. “What are you two doing up here?” she said.

“What is this?” she said after a few seconds.

“You seem upset,” she said to Dakota Fanning.

“We’re talking,” said Dakota Fanning in an agitated voice.

“Come downstairs. It’s Thanksgiving.”

“That means nothing to me,” said Dakota Fanning.

“It means something to me. Come downstairs and mingle. Don’t talk about this heavy stuff today. It’s Thanksgiving. Put aside your personal concerns for one day and think about doing something for me for once. Can you do that?” Dakota Fanning’s mother went downstairs. “After I came back from the store I went to my room,” said Dakota Fanning. “I got the digital camera. Then I walked around to see where my parents were because I didn’t want them to see me taking pictures of the skin cream to put on eBay. The lighting was bad in the computer room and my mom was in the shower so I went in the hallway and put the skin cream on the floor and took pictures of them there. I took a long time doing that because I wanted the photos to be good.”

“So it was around 2:00 when you got back. So it took you fifty minutes to put it on eBay?”

“No. I got back around 2:30, so it took me twenty minutes. Also, I didn’t bring the skin cream into the computer room so I had to keep changing the windows to look at the photo to get the details right for the listing. And that was when we were emailing. And we emailed a few times. So I waited between the emails.”

“What did you do while you were waiting?”

“Nothing,” said Dakota Fanning.

“What did you do with your hands?”

“I don’t know. Probably just pushed the antenna on my cell phone in and out.” Dakota Fanning was quiet a few seconds. “After that I went downstairs and got the mat out to do Pilates. I wanted to talk to my parents first to see what they were doing before I started because they kept saying we were leaving soon. Then they said we were leaving. So I put the mat away and waited for them.”

“What did you do while you were waiting?”

“I just walked around slowly,” said Dakota Fanning. “I checked the computer and walked around. I used the bathroom.” Dakota Fanning’s mother came in saying “Alright, what’s the problem here?”

“We’re talking,” said Haley Joel Osment.