Laura Shaw

She Played for Free

Jovan gravely took the dollar from his mom’s fingers and put it in his own pocket. She wouldn’t have changed her mind and taken it back, but why risk it? He wasted no time—first, a brisk yet polite walk to the end of the aisle where his mom was browsing for picnic napkins. Then, once he passed the discount plastic tablecloths and turned the corner onto the supermarket’s large, central thoroughfare, he did that funny speed walk he did in school to get to recess, moving at jogging pace but able to argue that he was walking if anyone claimed otherwise.