Richard Yates (3 page)

“Hispanic,” he thought and his cell phone vibrated.

Dakota Fanning came outside wearing pants and a shirt.

Haley Joel Osment followed her upstairs into her room. It was very dark.

She turned on a string of blue Christmas lights that were on one wall.

On the other walls were drawings, posters of bands, photos of Dakota Fanning and other people. “These are Dakota Fanning’s friends, and maybe family,” thought Haley Joel Osment. There were maybe fi fteen glass cylinders on the fl oor by an electric guitar. Dakota Fanning said they were candles she had got off eBay and used and that she was saving the empty cylinders because they looked pretty.

They sat on her futon bed that was about seven inches high.

mhp-yates-01.indd 19

mhp-yates-01.indd 19

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

Tao Lin
•
20

Dakota Fanning asked if Haley Joel Osment wanted

music. He said he did and she put on music. He lay on the bed and covered his face with a blanket. They listened to

“Tripped” by Neva Dinova which Haley Joel Osment had emailed to Dakota Fanning a few weeks ago saying it was one of his favorite songs. He moved his arm in the air and Dakota Fanning touched his hand. He held her body and they listened to another song.

One tear left her eye and he licked it.

“I licked your tear,” he said.

“It was a small tear,” she said.

“It was salty,” he said.

They left her house to hide somewhere until her mother was asleep. “I don’t want to go back to New York City,”

said Haley Joel Osment on the street. “I mean forever. I’m being serious.”

“What about your roommates?” said Dakota Fanning.

“What do you mean?” said Haley Joel Osment.

Dakota Fanning was quiet a few seconds.

“Will they be worried if you’re not there tonight?” she said.

“No. I only see one of them. We see each other like twice a week for forty-fi ve seconds. He probably won’t notice. I don’t know. I don’t think he cares. We are adults. We can choose what we want to do, with our lives.” Dakota Fanning grinned and said “What are you going to do?”

Haley Joel Osment said he didn’t know and grinned. They talked about living on a fi eld or maybe the ledge. Haley Joel Osment said he would be too afraid to sleep on the ledge because he might roll into the Delaware River. They mhp-yates-01.indd 20

mhp-yates-01.indd 20

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

21
•
Richard Yates

ran holding hands across a street. They went in a twenty-four-hour grocery store called Price Chopper. They stood in front of a gas station called Taco Palace and held each other under a very tall streetlamp next to a highway. Haley Joel Osment stared into the distance at a homeless center Dakota Fanning had said closed a few months ago because it was attracting too many homeless people to the area. “I don’t know,” he thought. “I think we’re holding each other like this so we can’t see each other and don’t have to do anything. We don’t know what to do. I should decide something and do it. I feel like she is thinking the same things I am.”

They walked to Dakota Fanning’s house.

Around 2:00 a.m. their heads and bodies were under blankets with their lips touching but not kissing. Haley Joel Osment stared at Dakota Fanning’s face. After a few minutes she kissed him with dry lips. He licked her lips and kissed her. The windows were up because Haley Joel Osment was allergic to cat hairs. Dakota Fanning usually did not put her windows up.

Dakota Fanning’s mother opened the door. “For God’s sakes Dakota,” she said.

Haley Joel Osment scratched Dakota Fanning’s back

with a fi nger that was already there.

“Put down those windows,” said Dakota Fanning’s

mother. “It’s freezing in here.”

“Put down those windows now,” she said.

“No, just let me have them up,” said Dakota Fanning.

“Hearing the cars go by on the street helps me sleep.”

“That’s funny,” thought Haley Joel Osment. “Clever.”

mhp-yates-01.indd 21

mhp-yates-01.indd 21

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

Tao Lin
•
22

“Just go away,” said Dakota Fanning. “Please.”

Haley Joel Osment heard Dakota Fanning’s mother say

“I can’t reach that one” and make weak struggling noises.

Dakota Fanning’s mother left the room closing the door.

Haley Joel Osment moved away from Dakota Fanning until he was off the bed a little. He said Dakota Fanning’s mother didn’t knock. Dakota Fanning said her mother never knocked. Haley Joel Osment said he was afraid. “Come here,” said Dakota Fanning and pulled Haley Joel Osment and he moved toward her and stood and walked into the closet and closed the door. He felt a little clever. Dakota Fanning told him to come out.

He came out and lay on the bed putting a blanket over himself.

“You said she didn’t come in at night,” he said.

“She doesn’t. It was because the windows were up and cold air got in the house.”

“What if she comes back?” said Haley Joel Osment.

“She won’t,” said Dakota Fanning. “It was just the cold air.”

“Do you regret coming here?” she said with a worried facial expression. Haley Joel Osment said he did not. Dakota Fanning covered her face with her hands. Haley Joel Osment pulled her hands off her face while grinning. Dakota Fanning hugged him very hard. They held each other under blankets. She twitched sometimes. She made small noises. Haley Joel Osment wasn’t sure if she was crying or dreaming. After some time he felt himself wake and asked if she was asleep and she said “A little” and he woke her and asked what time it was and she looked and said “Shit”

and left the room. She came in and said it was safe and he mhp-yates-01.indd 22

mhp-yates-01.indd 22

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

23
•
Richard Yates

went in the hallway, quietly walked down the stairs, ran for about six minutes, sat in the train.

One week later he visited again. They ate at Ming Moon and walked three miles to McDonald’s to visit Kailey who Dakota Fanning had said was her best friend. There was a pagoda by McDonald’s and Dakota Fanning said she used to go there alone on her break and sit and stare for twenty minutes. She said one time she didn’t want to work anymore so she hit herself until she was bleeding but when she went back no one said anything about the blood on her face. Kailey came outside and said her shift wasn’t over yet.

Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning sat in the backseat of Kailey’s car. Dakota Fanning put a CD in the car’s CD

player and her head on Haley Joel Osment’s shoulder. She said last summer Kailey’s mother left Kailey and Kailey’s sisters alone in the house for fi ve months while she went to Alabama to marry a 23-year-old from the internet. She said Kailey’s mother was 40 and worked at Wal-Mart and was living with an 18-year-old co-worker.

Kailey drove Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning

to the ledge and said “What are you going to do?” Dakota Fanning said “Probably just sit on the ledge or sit in Price Chopper.” It was around midnight. Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning sat on the ledge then walked through a residential area, a parking lot of school buses, a fi eld and arrived at Price Chopper. They sat in booths and watched the Price Chopper TV. “We ain’t playing around,” said a gang member on TV. “This isn’t baseball.” The gang member grinned.

Dakota Fanning put her head on the table and slept.

mhp-yates-01.indd 23

mhp-yates-01.indd 23

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

Tao Lin
•
24

Haley Joel Osment looked at her and sometimes touched her hair. He woke her around 3:00 a.m. “Let’s walk around,”

he said. “Okay,” she said. They walked through the pro-duce area. They walked through the cereal aisle. They sat on a bench in the eye solution area and Dakota Fanning slept with her head on Haley Joel Osment’s lap. Haley Joel Osment photographed the side of her face with her digital camera. He put the camera in her bag. He petted her hair and looked across the aisle at contact lens solutions. He saw the brand he used. He saw other brands. “I feel awake,” he thought. “I feel alone maybe. I’m glad I’m here. I feel far from New York City. Seems exciting, like I have freedom. I feel adventurous maybe.” Around 5:30 a.m. they were in a booth again. Dakota Fanning was asleep with her head on the table. Haley Joel Osment held her and looked at things.

He went to the opposite seat and lay and slept. He woke and saw Dakota Fanning’s head under the table with a shy facial expression asking if he was okay. It was around 6:45

a.m. They left Price Chopper. They walked over the fi eld onto the parking lot of school buses. Dakota Fanning called home and told her mother she already left for school. Her mother said she wanted new clothes but couldn’t afford them. Dakota Fanning told her mother to steal clothes by putting them in her mouth. Haley Joel Osment heard Dakota Fanning’s mother laugh then say she was leaving for work. “You told her to put clothes in her mouth,” he said.

“That was good. She laughed. She likes you.”

At Dakota Fanning’s house they slept in Dakota Fanning’s bed until around 2:30 p.m. then went to her mother’s room and lay on a king-size bed and watched a movie about a man locked in a room for fi fteen years who after being mhp-yates-01.indd 24

mhp-yates-01.indd 24

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

7/9/10 7:48:38 AM

25
•
Richard Yates

released becomes romantically involved with a woman he doesn’t know is his daughter. Dakota Fanning was asleep after about thirty minutes. Haley Joel Osment held her and thought “She lost interest in me, it’s over, I’ll go back to doing things alone in the library every day” but when she woke they kissed and she loosened his belt and did something to his penis with her mouth and about ten minutes later walking to the train he thought “She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t want to see me again.”

On Gmail chat the next day Haley Joel Osment said he didn’t know where to live when his lease ended August 1. It was May 15. “Don’t go to Florida,” said Dakota Fanning.

“I want to see you.” Haley Joel Osment asked if he could move to her town. “Yes,” said Dakota Fanning.

“When,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“Now. Right now.”

“But you aren’t fi nding me an apartment.”

“I’m looking online now. I can only fi nd things in places like Middletown. I want you to come here. But I don’t know where. I wish you could just live in my house. My head hurts.”

“Mine hurts,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“We need to hit them together for a little bit,” said Dakota Fanning. “To fi x it. I’m tired. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t feel tired.” Haley Joel Osment said he was afraid of his supervisor at the membership library because a few days ago she saw him using a computer when he was supposed to be shelving books and then lectured him in front of three other workers in a way that made it seem like he had been caught masturbating onto books or mhp-yates-01.indd 25

mhp-yates-01.indd 25

7/9/10 7:48:39 AM

7/9/10 7:48:39 AM

Tao Lin
•
26

something. “We should just disappear,” said Dakota Fanning. “Once in middle school I got made fun of so badly I just left and walked all the way home. No one even noticed.

It was great.”

“My face feels sad,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Come visit me.”

“I want to just skip school tomorrow and come but I only have $2. Maybe Kailey will lend me money. She has like $1,600.”

“Skip school and come. Please.”

“I’ll come Thursday. Is that okay?”

“I work Thursday,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“Shit,” said Dakota Fanning. “My dad is coming

Wednesday. And I work Friday. Can’t you just call out Thursday?”

“I already called out Monday. Is today Monday. I called out Saturday.”

“I’ll skip school Wednesday,” said Dakota Fanning. “I’ll be there at 9:55. Then leave at like 3:50. Is that okay.”

“Yes. Are you coming.”

“Yes. If Kailey lends me money.”

“I’m happier,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Let’s buy a squid from Chinatown. And put a dress on it.”

“Are they still alive,” said Dakota Fanning.

“I don’t know. We can release it into the ocean.”

“I want to buy an erhu from Chinatown,” said Dakota Fanning.

“What’s erhu,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“Chinese fi ddle,” said Dakota Fanning.

mhp-yates-01.indd 26

mhp-yates-01.indd 26

7/9/10 7:48:39 AM

7/9/10 7:48:39 AM

27
•
Richard Yates

The next morning on the train to 76th Street Haley Joel Osment went outside the station at 34th Street and called the library leaving a message then went to Bobst Library and emailed Dakota Fanning that he quit his job. “I called and said I wasn’t coming in today and that yesterday was my last day and for them to mail me my check,” said the email. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Happy.

Good.” The next morning he met Dakota Fanning at Penn Station and they walked to Union Square and went in bookstores and ate at Whole Foods. “I’m home,” she said on Gmail chat that night. “My mom lectured me for like 5

minutes. My dad just stood there. I’m tired.”

“Lectured about what,” said Haley Joel Osment. “She knew you didn’t go to school?”

“The school calls. I told her I was depressed so I climbed a mountain. She believed me. She said I was a stupid asshole and could have died and not been found for years. She is leaving Friday. She won’t be home until Sunday.”

Saturday on the train to Wall Street Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning stood holding a pole and he stared at different parts of her face. On his bed they were kissing and they removed some clothing. Dakota Fanning said it was okay. Haley Joel Osment said something about a baby.

“It’s okay,” said Dakota Fanning. “Just pull out.”