LITTLE WHITE LIES

"Jamie, I'm telling you, you need to chill out," Phillip said, carefully lining up his shot at the basket. They were out shooting hoops while their grandmother delivered a catering order to a party a few blocks away. It wasn't as nice as the court in their own neighborhood — it was a lot smaller, and the baskets were sad, bedraggled loops of rope hanging from rusted-out rims. But Phillip didn't care.

Jamie pushed out an annoyed breath and watched as Phillip launched the ball, then swore softly as it bounced off the peeling backstop and sailed away from them, in the direction of the fence. He jogged over to get it, dribbling as he walked back toward the almost invisible three-point line.

"Aren't you mad they didn't tell us the truth sooner?" Jamie prompted.

"No," Phillip said, "because all they're telling us is they have one slightly less boring desk job than the desk job we thought they had. And we knew anyway. You know we did."

Jamie crossed his arms over his chest. "Mom never lies."

"Dude, I don't know where you've been living, but Mom tells little white lies all the time."

"Like what?"

"Like… she told me I played great the other week in that game we lost, when I know I was terrible. Like, she said the store was out of strawberry yogurt, when really the blueberry was on sale. Like, Dad's excited about coming back for a month in November." He punctuated each item on his list with a bounce of the ball against the asphalt, then fired at the basket again, giving a little fist pump when the ball went through. "Everyone tells those lies. You even tell them. You know you do."

"I do not."

Phillip's voice shot up several notes, into a mocking tone Jamie hadn't heard in a while. "No, it's okay, Mom, I like that weird new pasta you bought. Thanks for the green sweater, Aunt Lillian, it was just what I wanted. I can't wait for the spring dance either, Michelle."

Jamie rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," Phillip said, "I'm glad it was about their jobs. I thought they were going to tell us Mom was pregnant."

Jamie's eyes widened a little at the thought. He hadn't let himself consider that a possibility, but he knew it was. Almost everyone he knew whose parents had remarried had little brothers or sisters running around a couple of years later. Except Dustin, whose little sister was purely an accident.

"They don't have boring desk jobs, though," Jamie said after a minute. "They said their jobs can get dangerous."

"I guess," Phillip allowed. "But they can't be that dangerous or Grandma would be flipping out all the time. And she doesn't seem to be flipping out at all."

"She's known for longer, though. Like a year. Since before the wedding."

"Yeah, and she lied to us, too, and you aren't mad at her."

For a long time, Phillip had a theory that they weren't making films at all. "For one thing, there's no way being a documentary filmmaker is such a big secret. They never talk about work in front of us, not even funny office stories," he'd said. "They have to be doing something else." But Jamie had found one of his mom's films on PBS one day so he hadn't been so sure about that. And he'd been past the IFF building, so he knew it was a real place.

Phillip had told their grandmother his theory once, and she had just given them a strange look, with her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. "You think so, huh?" she'd said. "Well I've been in that building and I can tell you their office is full of film canisters."

"That doesn't mean anything," Phillip had said later, when he and Jamie were out riding their skateboards.

Jamie saw Dotty's car pull up outside the park and gestured to his brother. She was taking them to lunch at The Pie Plate, and then home afterwards. They both knew the weekend at their grandmother's place was designed to let them think about things — she'd even called it a "cooling-off period" on Friday night, when they'd sat eating pizza on her couch.

"I needed one after I found out," she said. "Hoo, boy, did I need one. It was a good thing you boys were staying at Lee's that weekend."

Jamie remembered that weekend now, when his mother had been in London with work — spying or analyzing someone else's spying or whatever she did — and Lee had picked them up from school. They hadn't seen Dotty again until Monday night, and his mom had been there and both their eyes had been red and puffy. Phillip had brushed it off because Dotty had said they'd gone shopping for Amanda's wedding dress and "you know how Grandma is about weddings," but Jamie's spidey-senses had started tingling.

He had a bunch of questions. Oh boy, did he have a bunch of questions. So many he probably needed to write them down. They were trying to gloss things over, and he wasn't going to let them.


At lunch he slouched in the booth across from Dotty and made a mental list of all the things he wanted to know. He even gave it a title: Questions I'm Going to Ask that They Won't Answer. He was up to five when Ralph the manager came up to ask Dotty if she minded coming into his office because he had a check for her that he might as well give her in person instead of mail. So Dotty slipped out of the booth and followed him across the dining room.

"You've gotta relax, doofus," Phillip said, nudging Jamie with his elbow. "They're gonna start getting all concerned about you and then they really won't tell you anything."

Jamie scowled. "How can I relax, Phillip? This is a big deal. They're acting like it's nothing but it isn't nothing. They want us to take self-defense."

"Keep your voice down," Phillip muttered, leaning to rest his elbows on the table. "Is that so bad? No one's gonna kick your ass next year if you know how to defend yourself."

Jamie's brow wrinkled. "Someone was gonna kick my ass?"

"Who knows? Dork freshmen are low-hanging fruit. There's always some idiot out there ready to take advantage."

"Well I don't want to take self-defense. My whole life Mom has been telling me not to hit, and now she's telling me I need to learn how to take someone down. And that she knows how."

"See? Little white lies," Phillip said. He took a bite of his burger and settled back in the seat, chewing. "Look, that's not so bad. It might be kind of fun. We can do it together."

"I thought you didn't like doing things together."

"I never said that, bro. You assumed that." Phillip took another bite of his burger and Jamie watched him eat. He sounded just like Lee, when Lee used his trying-to-be-patient voice. And now he was taller and… bigger. Less like a kid.

"Well, yeah, I assumed that," Jamie admitted. "Because you have a girlfriend and stuff."

"Libby likes you," Phillip said. "For reasons totally unclear to me." He scrunched his face when he spoke, so Jamie knew he was joking.

"Yeah, well, she seems to like you, too, for reasons totally unclear to me." Jamie popped a fry into his mouth and gave his brother a satisfied grin. Phillip snorted.

"Anyway, you can't get all hung up on the details. You've gotta trust them a little. They aren't going to tell us anything more than they've already told us. Grandma barely knows anything."

Jamie shot his brother a skeptical look. He had a suspicion his grandmother had seen and heard more than she was letting on. He couldn't articulate why he felt that way, except that once he'd overheard her and Lee talking about taking unnecessary risks and her being in the middle of something. He hadn't meant to hear it but they thought he was upstairs studying with his music on and he'd come down for his calculator.

He'd been thinking about that on and off all weekend, how if his grandmother could end up in the middle of something then why couldn't he and Phillip? His mother hadn't gone and applied for a job at this place, either — she'd ended up in the middle of everything by accident, too. Really in the middle, he thought. Like, married to it.

He took a bite of his burger and looked around the room. His grandmother was at the cash counter, talking to Brenda. It didn't look like their usual gossipy conversation, either — they were leaning in to each other, speaking low. He thought he saw Dotty look over at them.

He nudged Phillip. "Do you think Brenda knows?"

Phillip snorted. "The waitress? What? Why would she?"

"Why not?"

Phillip shook his head. "You are acting paranoid, junior. Your brain is working overtime." He polished off his burger and pushed his plate away. "Look, maybe you just need to ask them a few more questions. I have a couple, too."

"Like what? What are yours?"

Phillip stirred his milkshake with his straw, then took a sip. "Well, I want to know if I can still go on exchanges to Europe and stuff or if that's off the table."

"Like if we're stuck here forever unless they come along?"

"Yeah. I mean that would suck."

"They wouldn't do that, would they? Mom was going to let us go visit Dad."

Phillip nodded. "Yeah, true." He set down his milkshake and ran his finger along the side of it, catching a drip of ice cream.

"What if something happens to them?" Jamie asked, suddenly.

"Mom said she doesn't go out in the field anymore," Phillip pointed out.

Jamie let out a long breath. He sipped his own milkshake. He'd gotten strawberry this time and he made a mental note to go back to chocolate, because chocolate was much better with a burger and fries. "Lee does, though."

"So you mean what if something happens to Lee?"

"Yeah. I keep thinking about all the things, like, if someone wanted to go after him they might not care if he's out with us."

"Like those crazy guys at the EAO who were going after Dad?" Phillip nodded. "But Lee was right on top of that guy. He knew exactly what to do to get us out of it."

Philip and Jamie barely ever talked about that weird morning at their school, when Joe's boss had pulled a gun on them while they jumped on a trampoline before class. They'd talked about it that weekend at Dotty's though, as they lay side-by-side on air mattresses on her living room floor. Phillip said he'd thought Lee looked familiar from the first time they met, and it had been driving him crazy trying to figure out why. So when Jamie had asked if Lee had been at the gym that day, he'd finally realized he wasn't imagining things. Jamie had felt a rush of relief at that, because he'd convinced himself he was imagining things, too.

Phillip shook his head, as if shaking an unpleasant thought loose. "Mom doesn't worry about that stuff, right? And she even got shot on vacation." Jamie knew he looked skeptical, because Phillip rolled his eyes. "I mean she goes around doing normal everyday things, and she said it the other night — she doesn't panic about whether something random and bad is going to happen, because sometimes those things just… happen. And maybe taking that training will just make us more aware of our surroundings or something. Other agents must have kids, and they don't keep them in a cage somewhere."

"Yeah," Jamie said finally. "Maybe."

"And we can look out for each other, right?"

Jamie straightened in his seat. That was twice in ten minutes Phillip had surprised him. He probably shouldn't have been surprised, though — they'd been getting along a lot better in the last year or so. He guessed they'd both changed, because their mutual ribbing didn't seem to bother either of them or come with any kind of antagonism. And now they'd looped Lee on it, too.

And there it was, the real thing he was worried about. Not Phillip or himself or even his mom or grandmother, because he knew Lee would do everything he could to keep them safe, just like he'd done that day in the school gym.

Lee, he was worried about Lee. A person who, not really that long ago, had been someone he wished would stop coming over every day, stop taking on things around the house, stop trying to be his friend.

Jamie ate another bite of his burger and turned his attention to the parking lot, where a little kid and his dad were walking hand-in-hand. The man was carrying a takeout container — a pie box — and the little boy, who was wearing a Superman cape, was telling him some kind of detailed story as they walked, waving his free arm in a big circle. He used to feel a little sad when he saw kids out with their dads like that, and he knew Lee did, too, because he'd commented on it once. Just an offhand thing he'd said, when he'd seen Jamie watching a father and son at the hardware store while they were buying new rakes for the yard.

He hadn't felt that way in a while. But he knew if something ever happened to Lee, he sure would.

"What if we ask him to quit," Jamie suggested.

"I don't think that's what they meant by 'any questions,'" Phillip said wryly. He stirred his milkshake with his straw, then pushed it away. "But yeah. What if we did?"

"We'll never know unless we do it," Jamie said. "And if we do it together, maybe he'll listen to us."

"Maybe," Phillip said, though he sounded doubtful. "If we explain."

Jamie nodded. He took another bite of his burger, chewed, and swallowed. "Wait. What are we explaining? We need to make sure it's the same thing."

"That we'll do the training or whatever but we want to keep our family safe, too," Phillip said.

"Yeah," Jamie nodded. "And?"

"And that includes him."

"Right. Do you think he knows that? That we think of him as part of our family, like Mom or Grandma. Do you think he gets it?"

"I dunno. Maybe? But we've never said it or anything. Maybe we need to spell it out." Phillip shrugged. "Libby always says guys can be dense about that stuff, and I guess we are sometimes."

"Yeah, sometimes." Jamie thought about how easily his mom said 'I love you,' and how awkward it felt with his brother, or his dad. He could understand feeling awkward with his dad, since they were only ever together a couple of weeks a year, but Phillip was right in his face every day and they never said it. He gave Phillip a shove with his elbow. "Doesn't mean we don't think it though."

Phillip laughed and nudged him back. "Right."

"Anyway, my English teacher says good persuasion needs an emotional appeal, so maybe we do need to spell it out."

"Mr Talbot, right?"

Jamie grinned. "You do listen to stuff in class."

"Don't let it get around," Phillip said, but Jamie knew he was joking. The same way he knew Phillip was on his side with this — and most things, if he really stopped to think about it. He felt a little calmer, suddenly. Phillip said they'd look out for each other, and Jamie knew they would.

Dotty was coming toward them now, watching them expectantly. So Phillip gave him another jab with his elbow, and Jamie gave Phillip a shove back, and they both started to laugh as she approached the booth.

"You boys," she tutted, as she slid into her seat. "When are you going to start getting along?"

Phillip smirked, and Jamie hid a smile as he sipped his milkshake. "Never," Jamie said. There it was, one of those little white lies Phillip had been talking about. "And that's how we like it."