Decameron: Being Seen [VII/6]
It was me and Leo — OK, fine, scratch that. It was me, Leo, and Lambert, who can’t take no for an answer and always invites himself along when Leo and I hang out.
“Be nice to him,” my mom told me one time about Lambert. “He doesn’t have a lot of friends.”
I’m like, you know what’s a good way to make friends? Listening when they tell you they don’t want you to tag along.
But Lambert still hasn’t figured that out, so it was him, me and Leo down by the creek in the park.
We were just hanging out, I guess. I’d found a pretty good stick. I was imagining it like some kind of wizard staff or something. It was the right kind of heavy. We were maybe hiding from my dad a little, but mostly we weren’t even thinking about him. We were just talking about people from school. Leo was skipping rocks, but they didn’t really skip very far. Lambert was kind of just pulling at the grass.
It was fun, which doesn’t usually happen on weekends where I’m with my dad. Most of the time, with my mom, I can see my friends (LEO, not Lambert) as much as I want. My dad, on the other hand, gets weird about me hanging out with boys, even when we all live walking distance from each other all the time. He’s fine in other ways, don’t get me wrong, but he basically thinks I shouldn’t be alone with boys, ever. Especially not in the woods.
I can scream at him and tell him it’s not like that, cause it’s really not, as much as I want. It never works. He just gets weird and sad, and says I can’t hang out with anybody, and then he tries to watch old Adam Sandler movies with me.
So, no, I didn’t tell him I was meeting up with Leo in the woods. The only reason I got away with it in the first place was because my dad was on a call when I said I was going out to play and he didn’t have a chance to interrogate me first.
Like I said, we were having fun. I picked up a cool leaf from the side of the creek (it was really red) and rinsed it off in the water. Leo tried to be all casual and lay against a tree, but then he got uncomfortable and stood up and pretended he’d meant to do it all along. Lambert was watching me near the water in that way where he looks like he’s going to say something for a really long time before he actually says it. I was just like, c’mon, Lambert, just hurry up already.
“I dare you to step in the water,” Lambert said.
“Why would I do that?” I asked back.
“It’s a dare.” Lambert got all defensive. “A dare doesn’t need a reason.”
“I need a reason to have a wet sock.”
I think the thing about Lambert is he does lots of things that he thinks you’re supposed to do as a middle schooler, or as a boy, or whatever, and basically none of the things he actually wants to do.
Leo, meanwhile, does all these things he thinks will make himself look cool, but when they don’t he’s got a good attitude about it. He’s goofy that way. He doesn’t let it get to him.
Lambert, though, was getting pretty annoyed. I was afraid he was going to do that thing where he gets silent and sad for a long time, so I was about to try to distract him with some gossip from school. Then we heard the noise.
It was somebody power-walking down the trail that spun off a little dirt path to the creek, humming to themselves in time with the sound of their steps. I didn’t have to see her to know who it was. I knew that humming voice already.
It was my dad’s “not girlfriend.” Christine. She was his neighbor and I knew they were dating because my mom told me, even though he never had her over when I was at his place on the weekends. Christine was tall and blonde and had a kind of a warbly way of talking. She was one of those people who thinks they’re really good at reading people, but then everyone she meets can tell she’s trying super hard to read them. And she was about to see me and Leo (and Lambert), and she was going to tell my dad about it first thing. And then I was going to have to listen to the sad guy lecture all over again about him “just being worried.”
Now, some people in this situation might freeze. They might think, maybe Christine won’t turn and look down towards the creek and see us. Maybe we can just stay put. But I think I’ve had enough life experience by now to know that you can’t just sit back and wait for things to work. You gotta act.
“Lambert,” I said. “I counter-dare you.”
“You gotta do my dare first,” he whined. The humming sound and power-walking steps got closer to where we were.
I stuck my foot in the water. “Lambert, I counter-dare you.” He mostly looked surprised. I don’t think I’d ever done one of his dares before. I don’t know why he was still daring after all those times I hadn’t done them. Lambert, you gotta learn to read the room.
“Take this stick,” — I handed him my wizard staff — ”And run out to the path yelling, ‘I’ll get you! I’ll find you!’ Something like that. Over and over again.” He took it, all quiet. I think he was pretty thrown off, to be honest.
I went on: “Keep running until you’re all the way home. Leo and I will come meet you there ASAP, OK?”
He looked unsure. He was all still for a moment. “You promise you’ll come meet me?” he asked finally, voice all small.
I did feel bad in that moment. Lambert might have been annoying, but I didn’t want him to feel like that.
“Promise.” I said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
Leo, this whole time, was looking game but confused. Ready for an explanation, or orders.
“Get behind that rock,” I said to him.
Lambert did as he was dared, and about twenty seconds later Christine’s head popped into view, looking confused and worried down towards the creek. Lambert must have really spooked her, running out onto the path like that. Then she saw me and seemed to get spooked all over again.
“Isabelle?” she said, wary. She took one of her headphones out of her ear.
“Hey!” I fake-whispered, “You live near my dad, right?”
She nodded, cautious.
I went up to her, all conspiratorial. “Real glad you’re here. I was hanging out in the woods by myself when this kid ran up to me, said he was being pursued by a nutjob.” I looked exaggeratedly towards where Lambert had been moments ago with my eyes, so she got the point that he had been the nut job. “I helped the kid out and hid him behind that rock, and sure enough that other guy came barreling in here looking for him. When I told him I hadn’t seen his guy, he took off.”
Her eyes were really wide and her headphones were both out now. She was really getting spooked.
“Anyway, that kid’s still here,”-- Leo picked this time to stand up from behind the rock--”but I don’t want us to run into that crazy stick guy again. Can you walk us home?”
Leo put on a real show of thanking her on the walk back. How he’d been so scared of that other dude. How he’d never seen me before, but he was grateful that I’d helped him. Christine seemed to soak it up.
“I’ll have to tell Alan next time I see him that he’s got a daughter to be proud of,” she said, meaning me. Barf, I thought, but then I was like, eh, that was too mean. Christine was trying her best, I guessed. My wet foot made a splonching noise as we walked, but nobody else seemed to notice.
When we got close to the house, I saw Lambert. He wasn’t in clear sight, mostly hidden behind a bush near where the street met the park. I thought about him waiting, not sure if me and Leo were going to come back. Not sure if we were playing some mean prank on him.
I felt really sad for a moment, and then I felt less sad because we’d done exactly what I’d said and come back for him right away, and then I felt even less sad after that because Lambert probably still would have hung out with us even if we had played a mean prank. Probably.
But I did think it was the right time to lose Christine. “Thanks, lady.” I told her, pulling away from her side. “I’ll have to tell my dad next time I see him that he’s got a real great neighbor.”
I waved back at her as I ran one direction. Leo said some excuse and ran the other way. We did a big loop and ended up right near Lambert.
He was basically blubbering with happiness that we were there, even if he was trying to hide it, and I could only get him to calm down by explaining what we’d done and why we’d done it. I told him he’d need to come up with a story for it if he ever saw Christine again. He was fine with it.
I think he’d never had other people have to trust in him like that on anything, and I think he really liked it. I think it meant a lot to him to be part of the group in a way that wasn’t just tacked on to the side. I think being depended on meant something big to him. At least, that was my impression.
Decameron is a newsletter recounting the 14th Century set of quarantine tales for 2020. Read the original story.
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