Richard Yates (22 page)

“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.”

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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 pro-vided 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 mhp-yates-01.indd 176

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North Carolina. Haley Joel Osment said one reason to support independent companies was because they were not existentially required to increase profi ts.

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 fi eld 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.”

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oil. He heard someone telling a story he had heard three times from the same person in the past two days. He fi nished 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 fi ve 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 mhp-yates-01.indd 178

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email. “In the museum I tried to fi nd things I could steal but everything there was shitty and the party girls kept follow-ing 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.”

“Yes, there is a gift shop here,” said Haley Joel Osment in an email. “All I stole was toothpaste and fl oss last night from the gift shop. I thought about stealing a painting off the wall to sell on eBay but I thought it wouldn’t sell for that much.” He stared out a window at a man throwing a football to a small child. “A beast is throwing a football to his son outside,” he said in the email. “After I fi nish my half hour on the computer I am going to walk around to see what else I can steal. My bus is at 1:30 p.m. When I get to my parents’ house I’m going to Whole Foods to buy a lot of good food for us I think. I’m also going to look for things to sell on eBay and then put them on eBay and package them and leave them in Florida so my mom can mail them after they sell. I think I have enough money to pay December rent now. Emory University paid me $200 for reading there and I have $100 from selling poetry books. I will check my email when I get home. I miss you. Bye.” He walked through long mhp-yates-01.indd 179

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hallways to different areas of the resort looking for things that might sell for more than $20 on eBay while listening to music using his portable CD player because a few weeks ago he lost his iPod when transferring trains at Secaucus.

He lay on a reclining chair by the swimming pool and read
Angle
of
Yaw
. Sunlight was very bright on the book. He put on stolen sunglasses. He began to sweat a little. He walked to the front of the resort. He sat on a wood bench. He sat in a bus.

He arrived at his parents’ house around 4:30 p.m. and made a smoothie and looked at the internet and emailed Dakota Fanning and went to Whole Foods. At night he and his mother ate nachos while watching a French movie in an independent movie theatre. A few months ago his mother emailed that she was thinking about going to a movie alone but was afraid. A few weeks later she emailed that she had gone to a movie alone. Haley Joel Osment thought about that on the drive home after the movie. The next day they visited his father in jail. A few days later he went to New Jersey.

It was mid-November. Dakota Fanning’s mother asked if Haley Joel Osment would stay at her house a few days while she was on a business trip so Dakota Fanning wouldn’t be alone. She said they could use her car but were not allowed to go to New York City. Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning promised not to do anything that would make her upset.

Their fi rst night alone they drank yerba maté tea and ate steamed vegetables and watched
Wheel
of
Time
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showed Buddhist monks creating an elaborate design representing the world of phenomena then brushing the colored sand of the design into containers and throwing the containers into the ocean. After the movie they photographed each other doing cartwheels in front of the TV. Haley Joel Osment opened the door while Dakota Fanning was in the bathroom and photographed her grinning. They had sex in the living room. The next afternoon Haley Joel Osment was staring at the back of Dakota Fanning’s head in the downstairs hallway. He had gotten upset about something and Dakota Fanning had walked away then stopped moving. “I probably would have killed myself by now if I had an easy way to do it,” she said facing the wall at an angle.

“Why don’t you just kill yourself on the train tracks?”

“It doesn’t work. They don’t go fast enough.”

“Yeah they do. You just put your neck on the tracks.”

“It doesn’t work. The trains slow down as they ap-

proach the station.”

“Why don’t you just walk to the train tracks and walk past where the trains start slowing down and then lie down on the tracks?” said Haley Joel Osment vaguely feeling like he had said this before.

“Okay,” said Dakota Fanning and walked out of the

house.

Haley Joel Osment thought about chasing her and

hugging her and lying with her in bed. He went upstairs and looked at the computer. He picked up packages. He went outside and saw the back of Dakota Fanning about four blocks away. He walked to the post offi ce. He mailed packages.

He walked over the steel bridge.

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He stood on the train tracks looking in both directions.

He walked on a street parallel to the train tracks. He walked behind a grocery store to the train tracks. He walked to the street. He walked to the train tracks.

In Dakota Fanning’s house he sat in the computer room staring out the window. Moonlight was on the metal shed.

The swimming pool was covered. Aladdin was making noises in the hallway. Haley Joel Osment looked at his email.

He saw that Julia was online. He drove Dakota Fanning’s mother’s car on the street parallel to the train tracks. He parked and walked behind a fl ower store. He stood on the train tracks. He opened his cell phone for light.

He drove to Dakota Fanning’s house.

He walked through rooms in the dark.

He sat staring at the computer screen.

He stood in the kitchen eating popcorn from a large plastic bowl on the counter while staring at a closed cup-board about ten inches from his face. He put salt on the popcorn. The bowl was pale green. The phone rang. Haley Joel Osment quickly walked into the living room. He walked halfway up the stairs. Dakota Fanning’s mother was leaving a message on the answering machine. Haley Joel Osment walked down the stairs. He stood in the living room.

He walked into the kitchen. He opened the door to the back patio and saw Dakota Fanning’s face. She moved backward a little. Haley Joel Osment held her hand and they went in the house. “Let’s lie on the bed,” he said and they walked holding hands to her brother’s bed and lay on it holding each other.

Dakota Fanning’s hands and hair and jacket were cold.

“What did you do?” said Haley Joel Osment after a few minutes.

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“I went to the train tracks. The train didn’t come so I left. I went to Rite Aid and looked for Burt’s Bees eyeliner. Then I came back to the house. I hid in the shed for a while. I looked in all the windows to try to see what you were doing.”

Late that night they dyed Dakota Fanning’s hair black.

“Goth,” said Haley Joel Osment.

“Goth,” said Dakota Fanning.

“It looks good,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Good job.”

The next day they were driving to the largest shopping mall in New Jersey and Dakota Fanning said “Do you want to go to New York City?”

“I’m not sure,” said Haley Joel Osment after a few seconds.

“It would be fun to be in New York City,” he said. “We could eat at pukk.”

They parked in Greenwich Village and Dakota Fanning’s father called. Dakota Fanning said she was in Middletown.

On the sidewalk Haley Joel Osment didn’t look at her and they walked without talking. “You shouldn’t have lied to your dad,” he said after a few minutes.

“You’re right,” said Dakota Fanning. “I’ll call him back.”

“Wait,” said Haley Joel Osment slowly. “Let’s just not lie to anyone anymore starting now. From now on if we want to do something we should just say we’re going to do it or else just not do it.” A few minutes later he said “I don’t know if you should call him back or not.”