“Glad to pay in American,” Beth replies, her smile tightening. “Why not? It isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Hasn’t been since we left the gold standard in 1933. You’d be better off taking payment in cigarettes. At least they’ll still be worth something when the country falls.”

“Did you want to pay me in ciggies?” the old woman asks. “It’ll spare me a trip to the Citgo after you buy my eggs.”

“I know most of the people round here. Where are you from?”

“The federal guv’mint!” says the old lady. “I am an undercover Eff Bee Eye agent, and I’m wearing a wire right this instant!” She cackles again. “I’m the oldest Eff Bee Eye agent in history. J. Edgar Hoover gave me my badge his own self, and the dress I’m wearing, too! We had the same taste in clothes.”

Beth inquires how much for a dozen quail eggs, and the old woman tells her four-eighty. Beth asks what tobacco honey tastes like, and the old woman says just like honey.

“Well, what’s special about it, then?”

“Eat enough and it will give you cancer,” says the old doll, keeping herself entertained.

Beth opens her hemp purse and produces a crumpled ten. “I need change.”

“Are you sure? Didn’t we just agree U.S. money is only worth what we imagine? How about I give you a dime and you imagine it was a dollar?”

“I don’t have that big an imagination,” Beth says.

“Now, that is unfortunate. The true survivalist—someone who has truly made survival their primary preoccupation—will find an imagination more handy than bullets or beans. The lack of one often leads to avoidable misfortune.”

“Do I have to pay extra for all the wisdom?” Beth asks. “Or is that on the house?”

The old woman lifts a metal cashbox from under the table and counts out Beth’s money. She offers it over with her great hungry grin. “Good conversation is even better than quail eggs, and sitting out here by myself so long, I worked up an appetite. I hope you didn’t find me too tiresome.”

While the ladies spar, Jack moves along the table of produce. He admires a few boxes of button-size wild strawberries and a carton of oily green peppers. He picks through a wooden box full of tiny envelopes of seeds. He pauses at one for “Candy Corn” with a doodle on it that shows an ear of corn with orange and yellow kernels.

“You can’t plant candy corn,” Jack says to himself.

The old lady replies as if he’d been talking to her. “You can plant anything. You can plant an idea. I used to live near a power plant—who knew you could grow one of them? Killers sometimes plant evidence to throw the police off the track.”