"I don't believe that it is. But the ones that there are are very different from the ones that we have, so they stand out."

"Yeah."

"Admittedly, our social problems aren't within my area of expertise either."

"Very peopley, yeah."

"If there's anything in particular for me to do in that area Jaromira will tell me to do it."

"Alrighty."

"Complementary skills are quite convenient."

"They sound it! Does she run a lot of interference for you?"

"So much."

"Like how?"

"Occasionally she interacts with people on my behalf, but more often she feeds me lines."

"I'm fishing for examples."

"Oh--a few months ago there was a biology lab assignment and I wanted to do an interesting variation that didn't exactly match the lab handout, so I went to Jaromira and explained the issue and she told me exactly what to say when I was asking permission to do it differently. Two weeks ago we had a group project in history and one of the girls in my group was flat-out insufferable, so Jaromira would distract her any time she started talking, so that the rest of us could get the project done."

"What's wrong with Insufferable Girl?"

"Didn't know how to take no for an answer. She kept suggesting things and people kept explaining why they wouldn't work or would make things more difficult and she kept bringing up the same things over and over again no matter how many times we explained that they wouldn't work."

"At least she proved distractible."

"Jaromira is good at that kind of thing."

"I'm not great at it myself so I'm just imagining her saying 'look, a squirrel' fifty times."

Giggle. "Oh, it was definitely subtler than that--Ava, the girl's name was Ava, would say, 'oh, you know what I think we should do here?' and Jaromira would come up with a guess and engage Ava in trying to shoot down Jaromira's idea--and then Jaromira would let her succeed so Ava felt like she was being listened to, and the next time she tried to speak up Jaromira would notice beforehand and say something to her completely unrelated to the project--"

Giggle.

Their food arrives. It is Olive Gardeny.

Mm, Olive Gardeny. 

"I like your taste in restaurants."

"Thanks! I'm pretty sure it's pedestrian and middle-class but have not previously had much wherewithal to refine my tastes!"

"The upperclass non-pedestrian restaurants I've been to were with my father and stepmother. It may have soured me on them somewhat."

"Fair enough."

"This is much better. When my mother was alive she used to take my sister and I to these suspicious-looking little hole-in-the-wall places with surprisingly delicious food."