Welcome to Gaia! ::

She had been sitting on the bench drinking her cocoa and people-watching for the last few minutes, letting the heat sear her tongue and warm her fingers through her gloves, scald her freezing face as the heat curled up into the air. It was another lovely day of doing nothing except wandering the city, sending work emails from her cellular phone, and shopping for a few small things for the home.

There was a kid (well, not a kid, probably, but younger than Jada) standing outside one of the stores. She had been standing there for a few minutes, uncertainly worrying the chain of a purse. She looked put together, but uncertain, and Jada entertained herself with the why the girl was standing outside, instead of going into the store. Maybe she was lost?

Watching for a few more minutes got her nowhere; eventually, Jada finished her cocoa and rose. She was going to walk away, but the young woman was still there, and so Jada moved over to her, giving a smile. "Hi. I don't normally bother, but- are you lost? You've been standing here for a while."

The kid blinked up at Jada, and for a moment her burgeoning maternal instincts flared with concern. Barely shorter than Jada herself, if Jada wasn't in heels, she had to wonder if she'd gotten lost, or if she was sick, or... but no; she spoke up, manicured fingers winding together. "You didn't have anyone coming to meet you? The salespeople inside can help too. If you're coming someplace like this to spend money, they'll be more than happy to help."

Most of them were on commission, and would be more than happy to try and take advantage of someone so small and, apparently, young.

She sucked in a breath and pulled out her cell phone, checking the time. "I've got nowhere to be," she said after a moment. "When you say nice, as if money isn't an issue, you've got to give me a general idea here of what you are comfortable spending. I mean, are we talking a $10,000 outfit, or like $1,000? Are we including shoes? Because shoes matter. And a coat. You don't wear a nice outfit with a crappy coat."

Jada's red lips curved in a smile. "Come with me, then. We'll go inside, you'll tell me a bit more about what you like, clothes-wise, then while you call your grandmother for a price tag, I'll dig through the samples. This store does clothes custom- you can try on the sample sizes for an idea, but the actual clothes are tailored to you, so as far as quality goes, you're off to a good start. You won't want shoes here, though."

She held out her hand to the other girl. "Jada Chamberlyn, nosy stranger extraordinaire. And you are?"

Jada paused, looking the other young woman over with a bit of concern at the girl's almost-indifference. "You shouldn't trust me until you've seen my idea of a classy outfit," she told Lily, shaking the girl's limp hand gently. "I understand old-fashioned families. I had a full formal debut ball. White gown, Texas dip and all."

She paused, a small smile playing around her lips. Marlo and Elzo had crashed the night before the ball, and Fallon and Audrey had spent the night, and they'd all had so much fun- and Jada's throat caught, her wistful smile frozen. "Either way, we'll get you taken care of." she moved into the store, pausing to let the teenager follow her in.

"What do you want? Something date-night formal, job interview, fun night on the town? Surely you have a preference on that? Colors?"

The fact that Lily didn't know what a Texas dip was actually helped Jada out a lot in determining a price range. Yes, said curtsy was a bit of a cultural thing, specific more towards a southern belle society, but it also helped her put the other girl's family in a certain bracket. They could be well-off, but chances were it wasn't an obscene amount of money. Which would mean yes, this could be a terribly important purchase, but the kind of money that could be dropped on a single outfit wasn't, perhaps, the amount of a car.

Lily's strict propriety reminded Jada a lot of her own hellish teenage years. Smiling to perfection, neat and wing-clipped, an automaton. She wondered if the girl wanted it that way- Kayley had enjoyed it well enough, before she died. Jada had always chafed at the bit, however, a mustang aching to run free.

"Date night it is," she said cheerfully. "Blues and monochromes..." waving to the saleswoman, she managed to get a room for them going. "Now, these are all samples. I'm gonna just grab at stuff. Put back anything you don't like, or give me more detail. Blues would look great on you, but I am of the opinion every young woman who is looking at date-night formal needs to consider the black dress.

Jada was furiously pulling things off the sample racks when Lily spoke up, and her head turned to examine the younger woman's choice. "Oh good," she said with some relief, "That is one of my favorites for you. It's a modest length, and lace, and like I said- every girl needs a black dress. What's the part you like most about it?" she waved the others to the staff, and they scurried to scoop and replace the pile of others she had pulled out.

If it was color, that wouldn't give her much to work on. "Are you most attached to the lace, or the modesty of it?" Jada expounded. It had to be more than color- the other black dresses had been sleeveless as well. The silhouette would be good on someone like Lily, who didn't have quite as much need for a custom cut as someone in Jada's unfortunate position of short and highly curvaceous. Perhaps start looking at more tea-length items? That would depend on the next response.

And then there would be shoes. A dress probably required Choos, but she'd wait to gauge.

She liked the lace! Bless- Jada began pulling lacy crap off the rack whether she liked it or not. Short lacy, Long lacy, Black lacy, colored lacy.

"Same rules apply. Tell the nice ladies to take back anything you hate. Do NOT-" she pointed at Lily, the very picture of motherly big sister- "Tell them to put something back because you dislike the color unless it is the one like that patterned yellow dress. This shop will make it custom to a color of your choice. We're shopping for the dress style."

Modesty didn't matter? Excellent. Jada liked lace herself, but some of what she squeezed her curves into wouldn't suit someone of Lily's age- especially not as a coming of age dress.