the two levels

by Jonathan R. Miller

  I keep running until I make it to the edge of the circle of restaurants. I still don’t see anybody around, which makes me glad and scared, both at the same time.

  I quickly check a few tables where I think Momma’s purse might be, but they’re all empty, both on top and underneath.

  I check a bunch more tables—I look at every single one, I think.

  But I don’t find Momma’s purse anywhere.

  • • •

  I run back to the escalator and race upstairs to the second floor.

  I pause at the top step. I look to the left and to the right—I don’t know which way to go. I can’t remember the direction I should pick.

  I say Momma’s name. I say it quietly; I’m too scared to call out for her. I look around and say her name again—maybe she’s listening somewhere close and she’ll come get me.

  I count to the number twenty inside my head while I wait.

  But Momma doesn’t come.

  I suddenly remember the eight stores with the broken glass in front of them. If I can find the eight stores, then I will know my way back to the toy shop. I look both directions, and soon I see the sign for Chili’s restaurant far away in the distance.

  I don’t wait; I run as fast as I can toward that restaurant.

  As I run, I hear the sound of my shoes hitting the hard floor again and again, echoing.

  I pass by Chili’s.

  I pass by the bookstore.

  I pass by the jewelry store.

  I pass by the underwear store.

  I pass by the frozen yogurt store.

  Up ahead, I can see the sign for the toy shop. It’s only three stores away.

  Just three more stores and then I’ll be inside with Momma again.

  Safe.

  I pass by the suit and tie store.

  I pass by the camping store.

  When I reach the front of the shoe store, something enormous jumps out of the doorway—a tall shadow with a hundred tentacles—and before I can stop or change direction, it catches me around the middle and sweeps me off my feet into the air. I scream, kicking my legs and swinging my arms wildly.

  • • •

  I open my eyes.

  I’m sitting on the floor of a dim room that I don’t recognize. I’ve never been here before in my entire life.

  A dark-skinned man is standing in front of me, and I can tell right away that he’s the bad person I’ve been worried about.

  The man is a stranger, but not a total stranger—he’s one of the passengers from our plane. In fact, he’s the same man who started pushing against the fence at the airport last night; I remember how he whistled for help through his two front teeth.

  He’s also the same man who, a few minutes later, threw a rock at the police—exactly the kind of thing that the bad person who broke all those store windows would do.

  The man is tall and skinny with sharp cheekbones and a short beard, but he also looks different now because he has a bright green bandanna tied around his long dreadlocks. He’s breathing hard like he ran all the way here, just like I did.

  “Don’t worry. Everything is all right,” the man says quietly.

  That’s a lie—everything isn’t all right—and telling lies is a bad thing. Also, the man doesn’t smile at me, which makes him seem mean on top of being a liar.

  Now I’m sure he’s a really bad person.

  “What’s your name, pikin?” he asks.

  I don’t answer the question; I’m still trying to figure out where I am and what I’m supposed to do next.

  What would Momma want me to do right now?

  The man doesn’t ask for my name again. He stands near the closed door with his arms folded like he’s the guard and I’m the prisoner.

  After staring at him for a little while, I look around the room and see a bunch of bookshelves along the walls, except they don’t have any books on them—they’re covered with shoeboxes. Rows and rows of shoeboxes. There are little pictures of shoes on each box, and also big black numbers showing the sizes. I’ve heard of rooms like this—when you’re shopping for shoes and you can’t find ones that are comfortable, this room is where the shoe person goes to find the right size. It’s basically the room where all the extra pairs are kept.

  I understand where I am now—the back room of a shoe store.

  But I don’t understand why the man would bring me here.

  And I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.

  “What’s your name?” the man asks. “You don’t need to worry about anything. It’s all right to tell me.”

  I don’t want to answer the question—I don’t want to talk at all—but I remember Momma said that this situation is an exception, so I have to do things I wouldn’t normally do. Like talk to a stranger.

  “I’m Jasmine,” I say.

  “All right, then. Why are you here, Jasmine?”

  “You put me here,” I answer.

  The man stares at me—he looks even less happy than he did before.

  “It sounds like you’re trying to throw sass now,” he says.

  “No, I’m not. I’m just telling you how I got here.”

  “I know how you got here,” the man says. He points to all four walls of the room, one by one. “I want to know why you got yourself into this building.”

  I’m not really sure what he means by that.

  I look at the walls where the man pointed, trying to understand what he’s talking about. All I see are shoeboxes, mostly, but I do notice a lower shelf where the shoeboxes have been cleared away and stacked on the floor.

  Then I see something really strange.

  There’s a saw sitting on the empty shelf. It has a pointy nose and jagged teeth—it reminds me of a shark’s face.

  As I look at the saw, I see something even weirder behind it.

  A huge rectangular hole has been cut into the wall behind the empty shelf, revealing the pale pieces of wood—the two-by-fours, as Daddy calls them—underneath. They’re basically the bones of the room. In between the pieces of wood, I see a bunch of products—electronic things you would find at a computer store—still sitting inside their packages. But I can’t tell exactly what any of the products are.

  It seems like the man is trying to hide his important stuff inside the hole he made in the wall, like he might be afraid that someone will try and steal it from him. Either that, or maybe the man just discovered some amazing things that were already inside the wall, like finding a hidden treasure trove!

  But how did the man figure out that the treasure was hidden inside the wall?

  That seems impossible.

  But maybe he found a secret map or something.

  The man snaps his fingers, making me jump a little bit.

  “Focus,” he says. “I want to know why you’re in here.”

  “You mean in the mall?” I ask.

  “Yes. The mall,” he says. “When you came to the mall, who was with you?”

  I hug my knees to my chest. “My mom was.”

  “Your mom was,” he says. “So your mom is what—a night janitor then? Or a security guard or something?”

  “No,” I answer. “She isn’t a janitor or a guard.”

  “She’s with management?”

  Management?

  “I don’t know what that is,” I answer.

  “The bosses of these shops. That’s what management is. The bosses.”

  “She doesn’t work here. She’s an artist—she works at my house.”

  The man stares at me without saying anything. He doesn’t seem mad, exactly; he just seems very serious.

  “My name is Emmanuel,” he says.

  “Okay.”

  “So you must’ve come to the shops from the airstrip,” he says, nodding. “You were one of the runners. With all of us.”

  “My mom was running, so I ran too. And I saw you push down the fence. Why would you do that to a fence?”

  Mr. Emmanuel doesn’t answer.

 
; “You’re not supposed to break things that belong to everybody who pays taxes,” I add. “That’s vandalism.”

  Mr. Emmanuel laughs a little bit.

  But he still looks really serious somehow.

  “Can I go now?” I ask.

  “Go where?”

  I don’t answer the question. For some reason, I don’t want to tell Mr. Emmanuel exactly where I need to go. But I decide that I have to tell him something.

  “I need to go find my mom,” I say. “It’s important.”

  “So you’re just lost. Is that it?”

  “Not really,” I answer.

  “Then why are you out running the mall then, pikin?” he asks.

  All of the sudden, I remember what I actually need to find—I need to find a phone. And Momma said if I can’t find her phone, then I should find any phone.

  “I need a phone,” I say.

  “A phone.”

  “Yes. Can you help me use the store’s phone?” I ask. “I need to call someone.”

  Mr. Emmanuel rolls his eyes. “What do you need a phone for, white girl? Who you calling?”

  “I just need it,” I say.

  “Well. From what I’ve seen, the store phones aren’t working. And I don’t have a phone,” Mr. Emmanuel says. “Sorry.”

  I stare at him.

  He doesn’t have a phone?

  “Everybody’s got a phone,” I say.

  Mr. Emmanuel looks surprised for a few seconds—his brown eyes open wide. But then he smiles.

  “You know what? You’re right,” he says. “I do have a phone, but I might as well not have it. It doesn’t work here.”

  “At the mall?”

  “In this country,” he says.

  I scoff. “Phones work in America.”

  Mr. Emmanuel nods. “But my phone is from another place. And sometimes when a phone comes to a new place, it doesn’t know how to connect to the network.”

  “Just turn it off and turn it back on.”

  “Look. I may know someone who has a working phone,” he says. “I will introduce you. How does that sound?”

  I’m not sure how that sounds.

  I look up at Mr. Emmanuel, hoping he will do or say something to make me trust him, but he doesn’t. He just stares.

  “Your friend,” I say. “He has a phone I could borrow?”

  “She. She does. Yes.”

  “But are you sure that she does?” I ask. “Can you call her and ask?”

  Mr. Emmanuel smiles.

  “How can I call her without a working phone, pikin,” he asks, shaking his head.

  I think about the question, and I decide that Mr. Emmanuel is right. He can’t call his friend if his own phone doesn’t work. That would be impossible.

  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

  “All right,” I say. “Can you take me to her?”

  “Let’s go,” Mr. Emmanuel says.

  • • •

  I follow Mr. Emmanuel out of the back room and into the front part of the shoe store. It has an actual basketball hoop, a pretend grassy area with white lines painted across it like a football field, posters on the walls showing men playing different sports, and of course, lots and lots of shoes on display. No people though. I don’t see anyone else from our flight.

  Outside the store, we turn left—away from the toy shop—instead of right. I don’t like that decision at all. I don’t want to go further from Momma. I want to get closer to her. But I follow Mr. Emmanuel anyway because he knows someone with a phone, and that’s what I need to find: a phone for my momma.

  We walk in the same direction I walked to get to the escalator. It feels like I’m going backward instead of going toward my goal.

  When we reach the front of the camping store, Mr. Emmanuel stops. He approaches the storefront and points to a shattered window next to the door.

  “Go on through,” he says.

  I look at the window. On the other side of the broken glass, I see a make-believe campground that someone set up—there’s a blue dome tent, a mannequin holding a fishing pole, pretend trees, and a pretend fire in the middle of a circle of stones.

  “I’m supposed to go in there?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “If you want the phone.”

  “I do.”

  “Then go,” Mr. Emmanuel says, pointing again. “Pay mind to the glass.”

  I don’t move. Everything is happening too fast; I need to think about what Momma would want me to do right now.

  Mr. Emmanuel leans in through the broken window and whistles through his teeth. One sharp note.

  “Sistah,” he says—he whisper-hisses like Momma does sometimes. “I bring orpotoe for you. She’s coming in through the front now. So don’t go blowing her little head off, you hear?”

  Without saying anything else to me, Mr. Emmanuel turns and walks back toward the shoe store, leaving me alone.

  I don’t move.

  I stand frozen in front of the camping store, too scared to go inside and too scared to go back to Momma without a phone. I don’t know what to do.

  “Pikin,” a voice whispers.

  I turn and see a woman inside the store display, crouched behind the mannequin with the fishing pole. I didn’t see her before now. She’s waving at me.

  I recognize her—she’s the same woman who brought medicine and water for Momma and me.

  I wave back.

  “Come,” the woman whispers. “Now.” Her eyes are darting around like she’s worried someone else might be nearby. Instead of waving at me, she starts waving me in.

  The woman seems nice; if I have to trust another stranger besides Mr. Emmanuel, she seems like the right one. I approach the display and climb into the camping store through the broken front window, being careful not to cut myself on the sharp glass.

  • • •

  The inside of the camping store is dark—all of the lights are turned off.

  The woman leads me past a few racks filled with puffy down vests, fleece sweatshirts, and rain-proof pants. I follow her behind the counter where the cash registers are—I see two sleeping bags unrolled next to each other on the floor. A long black gun sits on a shelf under the countertop. It’s scary, seeing a gun right there in front of me.

  “Is that real?” I ask, pointing.

  The woman looks down at the gun and nods.

  “Wow,” I say.

  The woman puts her pointer finger up to her lips and holds it there.

  “Sorry,” I whisper.

  The woman sits cross-legged on one of the sleeping bags and pats the one next to it. I sit down on the exact spot where she patted.

  We stare at each other; no one says anything.

  The woman looks pretty, like Momma, but she looks younger than Momma. She has two braids in her hair, just like I do.

  As I look at the woman, I wonder what she’s thinking about. Does she already know what I need—to borrow her phone—or do I need to ask her out loud?

  “What do you want?” the woman asks.

  I guess that answers that.

  “Can I use your phone, please?”

  The woman looks surprised, like she was expecting me to say something different.

  “My mom is hurt,” I add. “Remember? You helped us earlier.”

  “I remember,” the woman says.

  “So will you let me?”

  “Let you what?”

  “Borrow your phone. I won’t have it for long, and then I’ll bring it right back. Okay?”

  The woman doesn’t answer right away; she just stares at me, frowning. She really does look a lot like Momma, especially when Momma is unhappy about something.

  “What do I get?” the woman asks.

  I wait, hoping she’ll tell me more about what she means, but she doesn’t.

  “Huh?”

  “If I give you my phone. What do I get?”

  It seems like she wants to make a trade.

  Grownups don’t usually do trades—do they?
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  “You don’t have to give it,” I say. “Just loan it. I’ll bring it back really fast.”

  The woman shrugs. “Give, loan. It’s the same,” she says.

  Did she just say giving and loaning are the same?

  “No, they’re not. Give and loan are totally not the same.”

  The woman shushes me. “You need to quiet down,” she says.

  “Sorry. But they’re not,” I whisper.

  The woman crosses her arms. “Fine. Then let’s talk about what I gave,” she says. “I gave you water. I gave you medicine. I gave you a bent back to carry your na with.”

  “My na?”

  “Your mum,” the woman says. “I carried her upstairs, just like you begged me to. I gave you all these things—not loaned, but gave—so now I ask you: What do I get for giving even more?”

  I don’t answer; I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. I wasn’t ready for her to ask me for something, plus I wasn’t ready for her to seem so annoyed about it.

  “I don’t know,” I say. My voice comes out shaky. I almost start crying, but I stop myself—I think it’s easier to stop when I’m with strangers than when I’m with Momma.

  The woman keeps staring at me, but then I notice that her frown doesn’t seem quite as deep as it did before.