“You’ll see,” said Jasper mysteriously, heading off into a rack of clothes.

“Men’s jeans?” I asked, hurrying behind her.

But Jasper wasn’t trying on the pants. Instead she shoved her groceries at me and said, “Here, hold this for a minute,” and then she busied herself reaching into the pockets of each pair of pants, moving down the line quickly.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She didn’t reply and I felt like I should understand, but I didn’t, not until she glanced up at me with a sneaky grin and I saw something flashing in her fingers. A quarter, glinting silver in the weird fluorescent lights.

“Oh my god!” I shouted. “You’re brilliant.”

“Shhh,” said Jasper. “Just look busy.”

As I watched, Jasper went quickly down the rack, nimble fingers pawing at each pocket in turn. When we got to the end of the aisle, we doubled back along the other side of the row. After a bit, I decided to try my own luck, heading over for the winter coats, where I set down my bag of groceries and got to work. I turned up lint and dust, a few staples, and a button or two, but nothing more—until, in the women’s purses, I hit the jackpot. Two crumpled dollars in a hidden inside pocket. I couldn’t keep myself from squealing, just a little. It felt like we were berry picking or on some sort of scavenger hunt.

For maybe a half hour, both of us crisscrossed the store, weaving past each other occasionally, moving up and down every rack, until finally we met at the front of the store. Me with my two dollars and a pretty rhinestone button, and Jasper with a secret smile. “Okay, let’s go,” she said.

On the curb a few storefronts down, Jasper sat, and I joined her on the hot pavement beneath the overhang of a tattered awning. “I found two dollars and a button,” I said proudly, holding out my cupped hands.

“Hmmm,” said Jasper. “Two bucks is great. But I think the button is . . . questionable. You probably shouldn’t have taken that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “my thinking has always been that a store can’t charge for money, right? Because they can’t sell it. So, like, if I bought a two-dollar skirt, and it had a hundred-dollar bill in it, it would still cost two dollars. If one of the folks who worked there found the money before I did, I’m sure they’d pocket it too. But the button is sort of a thing. Like, they sell buttons at the store. So if someone found the button, they wouldn’t keep it. They’d put it in the button box and sell it for a quarter. Know what I mean?”

I didn’t understand. “So you think you might get in more trouble for the button than the cash?”