the two levels

by Jonathan R. Miller

  “But why are you giving me an exam?” I ask.

  Doc keeps staring at me like I’m speaking a language he doesn’t understand.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” he says. “Sorry.”

  Honestly, I’m not exactly sure what I mean either.

  “This is just something that I have to do,” Doc says. “Okay?”

  “I guess so,” I answer.

  “Good. So to start with, is it all right if I use my hands?” he asks. He holds his gloved hands in front of my face like he’s proving that they’re empty.

  I nod. “Okay.”

  Doc gently rests his palms on my shoulders and, using his fingertips, lightly presses underneath my jaw, right below my earlobes. It feels weird, but it doesn’t hurt at all.

  “Is that okay?” Doc asks.

  I nod. “It’s fine.”

  As Doc continues with his exam, I notice that the soldier with the camera is circling us like a vulture, taking pictures from every possible angle.

  “Can you open your mouth?” Doc asks.

  I do what Doc needs me to do.

  “Ahh,” I say.

  Doc stares at the inside my mouth. It takes so long that my jaw gets tired from holding my teeth up in the air for so long.

  When Doc is finally finished looking inside my mouth, he takes hold of my left arm with both hands and starts bending it and unbending it, bending it and unbending it, over and over.

  I have no idea why he’s testing my elbow.

  I already know that it works.

  While I wait for Doc to finish, I think of another question I have.

  “What about everybody else?” I ask, pointing toward the crowd gathered behind me.

  Doc glances over my shoulder.

  “What about them?” he asks, going back to moving my arm around.

  “Aren’t you going to see if they need help?” I ask, pointing again.

  Mr. Doc makes a big sigh. He sounds like Darth Vader when he breathes heavy through his hood like that.

  “Look, Jasmine,” he says. “It’s Jasmine, right? Look, Jasmine, I’m glad—sincerely glad—that you have compassion for everyone here, but their situation isn’t about to be fixed by you, me, or anybody else inside this building. Right now, I’m just here to do a simple job. And that job is to give you—you—a medical exam. And that’s all. I have no authority to do anything beyond that one simple job.” He shrugs.

  “But where were you before?” I ask. The words come out cracked; I’m getting really, really close to crying right now.

  Doc’s eyes widen. He looks both surprised and confused.

  “Where was I?”

  “Exactly. You could’ve been here sooner,” I say. “Where were you?”

  “I’m really sorry, Jasmine,” Doc answers. “I came as soon as I was told to.”

  “Well, it wasn’t quick enough.”

  “It wasn’t?” Doc asks. “Why wasn’t it?”

  “Because it wasn’t,” I answer, crossing my arms.

  “All right, all right, I hear you,” Doc says. “I’m really sorry.”

  “You should be. You weren’t here soon enough to help everyone who needed it. You came too late.”

  Doc doesn’t respond.

  He reaches out and pulls me in close, wrapping his arms around me. Even though his jumpsuit feels rubbery and smells weird, I let myself be held—I need to.

  I cry as hard as I’ve ever cried before.

  “I’m so sorry,” Doc says. “I wish I’d been here when you needed me.”

  • • •

  When Doc finally finishes the medical exam, he walks me back to Mr. Dustin, who’s waiting outside the glass doors, right under the giant red Macy’s sign above the storefront. I see piles of brown packets—I think those are the MREs Mr. Dustin was talking about—and stacks of clear plastic water bottles in cardboard trays.

  “There she is,” Mr. Dustin says when he sees me. “The young lady of the hour.”

  I don’t want to talk to Mr. Dustin at all.

  I want to talk to my dad.

  “I did what you wanted me to do,” I say. “All my tasks are done. So can I talk to my dad now?”

  Mr. Dustin smiles. He unclips the walkie-talkie from his belt and offers it to me.

  “I just spoke to your dad—Stephen, right? Me and Stephen just talked a few minutes ago,” he says. “He’s waiting to hear from you.”

  I hold the walkie-talkie in both hands and stare at the round speaker, the antenna, the switches and knobs.

  It’s amazing.

  “Just press Talk and hold it down,” Mr. Dustin says, pointing toward a bright green button.

  I don’t wait. I click the green button right away.

  “Hello?” I say.

  I wait to hear the sound of Daddy’s voice.

  “You have to let go,” Mr. Dustin adds.

  “Of what?”

  “The button.” Mr. Dustin points again. “You push it to talk, and let go of it to listen.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  I let go of the green button, and right away I hear my daddy’s voice come through the speaker like a song.

  • • •

  I talk to my daddy for a long time.

  I tell him about everything that’s happened to me since I ran out of the San Jose airport, all the way up to when my momma passed on. Daddy tells me that he’s proud of me, that I’ve done an incredible job, and that none of the bad things that happened were my fault.

  Not even Momma dying.

  Daddy tells me that there was nothing I could’ve done for her, and that sometimes people get hurt too bad to be saved.

  He whispers the whole time, but I can tell by the way his voice shakes that he might cry at any moment.

  After a long pause, Daddy tells me that he has to say goodbye for now, but that there’s one more thing he needs to talk about.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I want to talk about Christiana,” Daddy answers. “Your friend.”

  Wait.

  Daddy knows about Miss Christiana?

  “She’s been looking out for you this whole time, right?” Daddy asks. “Treating you well?”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “Okay, that’s good. Well, your mom spoke with Christiana early on, and so did I,” Daddy says, “and we came to an understanding, the three of us. An agreement, basically. At some point soon, Christiana is probably going to ask for your help with something. And if she asks for your help, I want you to say yes. I want you to do whatever she asks you to do.”

  I wait for a long time before pressing the Talk button.

  “But what is she going to ask me for?”

  “I can’t explain it on a radio,” Daddy answers. “Just trust me, Jas. Christiana has been good to you, yes? And she was good to your mom—I think she did as much as she could for her. So if Christiana asks for something in return, please give it to her.”

  “Why do I have to?” I ask.

  “Just trust me,” Daddy says. “All I want is to keep you safe until I see you again, sweetheart.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Jasmine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t talk to anyone else about what happened to your mom. Keep it to yourself as much as you can.”

  “Why are you whispering?” I ask.

  “Just do what I’m telling you to do, Jasmine. Please.”

  • • •

  The soldiers eventually leave.

  The people of my second-floor village stream out of the glass doors to collect what the soldiers left behind, carrying it back inside by the armful. It seems like it takes a hundred trips, at least, to get everything into the store.

  I get out of the way and watch until they’re finished. I know I should help, but I don’t.

  On my way back into Macy’s, I run into Miss Christiana.

  I mean, not literally—I don’t crash into her like it’s rush hour or anything. I just see her there in front of
me, and it’s totally unexpected.

  She’s sitting in a metal folding chair with her chin in her hands, elbows resting on her knees. It seems like she’s been waiting a long time for me to come in through the glass door.

  When Miss Christiana sees me she immediately straightens up.

  “Pikin! There you are,” she says, immediately scooting over to one side of the chair. She pats the small, empty space beside her. “I’ve been waiting for you to come. Sit with me. Come.”

  I notice that Miss Christiana is frowning—she looks really serious. Way too serious.

  Uh oh.

  I might be in trouble for not listening to her earlier.

  This time, I do exactly what Miss Christiana asks me to do; I sit down on my half of the chair.

  “I need to talk to you, pikin,” she says. “And what I have to say is going to be hard for you to hear. I know it will be.”

  I feel my stomach go cold.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Miss Christiana puts a hand on my knee.

  “I’ll tell you quick, love. The way I would rip off an old bandage,” she says. “Here it is. You are not welcome here in the store anymore. I’m sorry.”

  I stare at her.

  “I can’t be here?” I ask, my lip trembling.

  Miss Christiana shakes her head.

  “Not inside the store. I’m sorry, love.”

  “But why?” I ask.

  Miss Christiana puts her arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer.

  “The people inside. More precisely, the people who lead the people inside. They decided on this,” she says. “After watching you with the soldiers—how the soldiers treated you—they are convinced now more than ever that you are not one of us. That you cannot find a place here, even in the short term.”

  How the soldiers treated me?

  “But they were nice to me,” I say. “I mean, mostly they were.”

  Miss Christiana nods. “That’s exactly what I mean,” she says. “They gave you medical treatment. What do they give the rest? They gave you the means to speak with your family. What do they give the rest? They are going to give your story to the world. What do they give the rest?”

  “Food,” I answer. “Food and water. That’s something.”

  “Yes. Yes. It is,” Miss Christiana says, nodding. “But the point is that you received basic elements of life that the rest did not. That the rest could not. This makes you an undesirable in their eyes. And to them, this means that you cannot spend even a part of your life as one of us. You have no place here.”

  She’s telling me that I’m not one of them.

  I can’t live here anymore.

  I have no place.

  “But can’t you just tell everyone to let me stay?” I ask.

  “It wasn’t everyone who decided this. Most people don’t care about you one way or the other, child—they’re too busy trying to survive. It was the leaders who decided. Leaders from my country who were chosen to make decisions for the group, and leaders from the South African contingent who were chosen for the same.”

  “Then what do I do?”

  “Shh. It will be okay,” Miss Christiana says. “Go to the shop where we first met. Stay there and wait for me to come. I’ll be there soon.”

  • • •

  I leave the second-floor village—what I actually thought was my village—behind.

  But that’s not the worst part.

  I leave my momma behind, who I know was mine.

  That’s the hardest part.

  Completely alone, I run all the way back to the camping store and climb through the broken window. I crawl past the fake campsite display and feel my way to the back of the store, where I find the counter with the cash registers on top. I climb inside one of the sleeping bags—the blue one, the one that Momma used—and cover up my head. I pull the drawstring tight, curl into a ball, and close my eyes. My heart is pounding a hundred miles per minute.

  • • •

  I wait, buried inside the blue sleeping bag.

  I’m so scared that somebody else is inside the store, waiting for the chance to jump out and grab me, that I don’t move a single muscle.

  I wait. But nothing happens.

  All I hear is the sound of my own breathing.

  Eventually I find the drawstring in the dark, loosen it, and poke my head out of the opening in the sleeping bag. The air feels cool against my face. It’s dark inside the store, but my eyes have gotten used to it.

  “Hello?” I whisper. “Am I just me right now?”

  I freeze and listen as hard as I can for a response.

  I don’t hear anything.

  I slowly climb out of the sleeping bag and sit on top of it, crossing my legs under me.

  I see the long countertop and the cash registers above me.

  I see a grid of shelves—they remind me of little cubbyholes, like what we have in my homeroom at school—underneath the counter. The cubbies are filled with supplies that the workers use when they’re taking care of customers: clear plastic clothes hangers with metal hooks, white tissue paper, flat pieces of cardboard that can be built into boxes by fitting the tabs into the right slots, stacks of flat paper bags with curving handles that look like thin pieces of rope. Above the grid of cubbyholes is a long shelf where Miss Christiana’s gun used to be, but the shelf is empty now—I don’t see the gun anywhere.

  I catch sight of a pile of stuff partially hidden by a corner of the red sleeping bag laid out next to mine.

  I crawl onto the red sleeping bag and lift up the corner.

  I see the items that I found when Momma let me walk up and down the aisles with a shopping basket, looking for anything useful.

  A purple keychain flashlight.

  Six packages of freeze-dried ice cream—three vanilla and three chocolate.

  Four granola bars (chocolate peanut-butter crunch).

  A compass.

  A white plastic first-aid kit with a red plus on the cover.

  A long black strap shaped like a loop…

  Wait a second.

  A long black strap shaped like a loop?

  I grab the strap and pull, but it doesn’t move very much—it feels like something heavy is attached to the other end. I take the strap with both hands and lean back with all my weight until it comes free. I tumble backward, landing on my back with the object—whatever it is—on top of my chest.

  I open my eyes and look at what I’m holding.

  It’s a purse.

  Black with a silver zipper and a big shiny buckle. The purse looks like it’s ready to burst apart at the seams, just like Momma’s always does.

  In fact, the purse looks a lot like my momma’s. Actually, I’m almost positive that it is Momma’s.

  I know I shouldn’t open the purse since it isn’t mine, but I’m curious. And right now there aren’t any grownups around to tell me what to do, so I decide to go ahead.

  I unzip the purse and look inside.

  I was right.

  I find my momma’s wallet, her hair brush, her lipstick, a bunch of loose change, a few bobby pins, and her heavy set of keys with the Honda alarm clicker attached. Momma’s stuff is really familiar to me because I always used to go through her purse back at home. She usually knew when I was doing it; I only looked through her purse a few times without her knowing.

  At the very bottom of the purse, I find Momma’s phone.

  The screen is black. I try pressing all the buttons on the sides and on top, but nothing happens—I think it might be out of batteries.

  I hold Momma’s phone in both hands, staring at its blank face.

  How did her phone get all the way up here to the second floor? That’s kind of weird.

  Her purse, too.

  I guess Momma could’ve found the purse and phone all by herself. Maybe that’s what happened.

  But I don’t think so. Probably not.

  I don’t think Momma felt good enough to climb up and down all those st
airs.

  So, maybe it was Miss Christiana. That seems possible.

  Miss Christiana could’ve found Momma’s purse and brought it up here to give it back.

  Yeah. I think that’s probably what happened.

  After a while I drop the phone in Momma’s purse, climb inside the blue sleeping bag and lie on my back, staring up at the ceiling. It’s the type of ceiling that looks like it’s made up of hundreds of white squares, each of which is speckled with hundreds of black dots. The dots almost look like holes, but I’m pretty sure they don’t go all the way through to the other side.

  • • •

  I stay inside the sleeping bag for a long time, thinking about everything that’s happened to me recently.

  Hearing gunshots at the airport and running away to the mall.

  Finding out that my momma got hit by a bullet in her belly.

  Sneaking down to the food court to look for Momma’s phone.

  Meeting Miss Christiana and Mr. Emmanuel.

  Meeting Hadley and Mr. Jim.

  Running back and forth, back and forth, between the two levels.

  Losing my momma.

  Becoming famous overnight.

  Meeting the group of soldiers.

  Hearing the news that I can’t live in the second-floor village anymore.