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She shouldn't have been surprised, when the young woman mentioned she liked flowers. She glanced over the pieces the girl looked at, nodding in her own peculiar brand of approval.

At one point she slipped another, smaller purchase in with the ones she'd already gotten; hopefully Eve wouldn't notice it, as it was going to be hers! It wasn't much like what she was looking at, but it would be something that the other girl would hopefully enjoy.

"You're not the only one who almost fell asleep in there." she admitted, nose wrinkling. "I've had to wake up students many times. He's nice, but he's a poor teacher." not too poor, or he wouldn't still be at Crystal. Comparatively... "I don't believe I know Rea. Maybe if I saw her?" she waved her hand, eyes catching on another statue.

Her mother would love that.

Her father would beat her. That was almost an entire month's allowance.

She swallowed, glanced at Eve. "One moment?" she asked, and lifted her cell phone to her ear. She spoke to her father in a quiet voice. "Sorry I... yes father. A... yes sir. Fif... thou... sir." her voice was quiet, only brief bits drifting to the other girl. Four minutes later she clicked the phone shut and smiled brightly at Eve. "And that, ma'am, is my last purchase of the day."

She'd gotten permission to get it, on the promise that she would allow her sisters and brother to put their names on the gift as well. "Would you like to do lunch?" she looked at Eve longingly. Company. And she'd actually have a chance to sit down and get the measure of the other young woman.

"No, I am still within my allowance." she frowned. "My mother would adore this, but it is a full months allowance, and I've already had to replace so many things with the incident." she shook her head. "So I had to call Daddy and ask permission to go over my monthly allowance."

She smiled, pleased. "Daddy has never taken away my cards." she looked horrified. "When I overspend, I have to write a note telling him why, and if I don't have a good reason, then I have to do some work for him. Mostly stuff his secretary does." Like file the paperwork, and email his business partners, and transcribe. Sit in on board meetings and take notes.

Jada moved over to the counter, pulling her credit card out of her purse and sliding it to the salesperson. signed the slip, and accepted a bag with her purchases. "Where would you like to go?"

Jada shook her head. "An hour a day devoted to shopping is built into my daily schedule. I would die without it. Sometimes it is hard to fit it in though." she looked regretful.

"Luckily, I've never had to sneak back my credit cards. I couldn't, even if I wanted to. Our butler seems to have his nose in everything." she sounded mildly disgusted. "He knows things about me before I knew them about myself. I tried to sneak into Mother and Daddy's room once as a child, during a thunderstorm." she grinned. "I even went the back way, through one of the passages. He knew exactly where I would be coming from. Uncanny." It hadn't been her mother who helped Jada and her sisters- and now her brother- with those more 'delicate' matters of growing up. It wasn't their parents who signed off on the little unimportant papers from their teachers. It wasn't their nanny; it was all the butler. He ran everything. He knew everything. Maybe it had to do with the fact he'd-

With a playful smile, she offered Eve her arm. "I think there is a Thai restaurant nearby, correct? Some type of a semi-formal restaurant, rather than the food court? We can eat there, I believe it should prove to be acceptable. T.G.I. Thai...days?" she gave a little half-shrug.

"I wish my butler was Alfred." Jada mused, guiding her new companion in the direction of T.G.I. Thaidays. "He's so distinguished. And awesome." Her mother would die without their butler, however, and without the small army of staff who helped around the home. Maids, gardeners, kitchen staff and most especially the nanny. "Your family doesn't have a butler?" She wouldn't need one, personally, not unless she got a huge house. A maid, perhaps, and definitely a cook.

"And at least I'm not the only one who makes a fool of herself over spicy food. We'll have to make sure we have lots of drinks to cool our tongues." Jada looked oddly delighted at the thought of flapping around like an idiot. Luckily it didn't take too much of a walk for the two young women to make it into the restaurant, getting a table.

A four-seater table, not one of those damn tiny two-person tables.

Jada set her bags in one of the seats, ordering a water, no lemon, low ice.

Jada looked surprised. Why, she didn't know. "Some mothers do like to cook, I guess." she agreed. "I tried to learn to cook once." the remembrance of cracking open the egg and the- Jada made a small noise, shaking her head. "Cooking isn't for me. Nope. Nor for Mother, she'd rather just pay other people to do it. I've heard people say that cooking is relaxing, but never quite seen it as being such." a slim hand waved. "I always see Cookie running around the kitchen cursing at her helpers before Mother's bigger dinners." Cookie was the nickname for the older woman who had been queen of the kitchen since Jada was a child. "It just seems like a hectic mess."

Lime juice. Jada shook her head. "I was going to get some lemon slices with the meal, but I try and drink plenty of water. I rarely drink anything else except fruit juice." Jada was one of those rare people who never drank carbonated beverages. Almost always it was water, or milk, or some kind of special juice with tons of vitamin C. She wouldn't even drink carbonated water. "I just don't like having my lemon put in my water." she shook her head. I'd rather suck on the slices. Is that too particular?" for a moment, Jada was afraid she was coming across as incredibly picky. Which she was, but that wasn't the point.

"I wouldn't call myself a health nut." Jada looked thoughtful as the waiter brought them both their drinks, nodding approvingly at him when he brought her exactly what she asked for and a straw to boot. Jada never put her lips to restaurant glasses. "But I do try and be as healthy as I can." It was how she kept herself looking nice. By taking care of herself, and paying reasonable attention to what she put in her body.

She placed her order, passing the menu back to the waiter. "I don't mind things being sour, it is when they are bitter that I.." she made a face, shook her dark head. "I really can't stand it when someone gives me something bitter." Sour could be sweet at the same time, like fruits. Bitter was just disgusting.

"Everything labeled food is a guilty pleasure." Jada groaned it, beaming at Eve. "I work out almost 3 hours a day to keep this figure." she patted her slim belly, looking immensely satisfied. And it was true. Jada worked out like a fiend. She jogged in the morning, she exercised at the gym in the evenings, she patrolled as Scylla, and she did it all so she could be greedy and beautiful.

It worked for her.

The heiress was pleased Eve seemed to have much the same taste in food as her. It gave her something to talk about other than exercise. "I can't cook food, but I sure can eat it." she clucked her tongue, popping the straw from its wrapper and popping it into her glass, taking a sip of the water. Hmmm, it tasted funny. Perhaps she was getting a cold.

"Most definitely." The waiter returned with the food and Jada gave him a smile, attention on the plate in his hands. Silverware was unwrapped with efficiency, the silverware laid out in an almost formal dining manner to each side of her plate before picking up the appropriate piece. She sat straight, shoulders back to eat. From three, Miss Manners had been a companion in her life. If Jada did nothing else like a formal woman, it was eating, at least in a halfway decent setting.

Her cheeks flared suddenly, remembering the dinner she'd had with Marlo and Elzo, that night. She hadn't eaten like a lady that evening. It was still a mortifying memory, more that the fact that they'd finished before she'd eaten half of her meal. Jada took small, precise bites of her meal, swallowing before opening her mouth. "It is delicious." she agreed. An eye went to the spicy dish, drifting over to the lemon slices the server had brought at her request.

She moved the slices towards the middle of the table, grinning at Eve. "Just in case." she told the other young woman, and dipped her spoon into the curried dish. She took a deep breath, unsettled violet eyes on the spoon. "I can't believe I am about to put this in my mouth."

That's what she said.

And with that, Jada took her first bite of her spicy meal.