Jo, Sol, Torrie & Theo || over dinner
This place is, to be quite honest, every bit as ridiculous as she had hoped it would be. What a tasteless, gauche group of individuals she is surrounded by, slurping wine from bottles with French labels and tinkling laughter over toasts and truffled hors d'oeuvres. They are out of touch and out of their minds and she loves every single moment of it. It's like they've been taken by madness, and she too feels a bit mad. Maybe it's the dreamlike atmosphere of the swimming starscape of lights on the ceiling, maybe it's the dazzling nature of her imp-eyed date, maybe it's the wine with French labels, but she is eating things of unknown provenance and being introduced to people with titles before their names and laughing like the world isn't dying all around her for the first time in...
.....ages.
She is caught up in the moment of it all. Though a compartment of her mind, of her heart is still tuned to the names she is hearing, waiting for one to sound familiar, waiting to hear it echoed on Virgil's lips from somewhere deep in her memory, she isn't thinking first of her vendetta or her anger or the black hole that is her mourning heart. She is taking each second for what it is worth. How could she not, with a companion like Solomon beside her? His adventurous spirit is infectious, and with his influence it all seems like one great big game. They have already assumed fancy alter-egos for the night-- she has been introduced to several Senators as Miz Geraldine Winthrope Barrington-Rothchester, an heiress to a "pearl mining" empire that everyone seems to believe is an actual thing, or at least seems too polite to question the veracity of.
She may have committed fully to the experience, but that isn't to say she is in her element. There are moments when it is quite clear she doesn't blend. This is particularly obvious when dinner is served to the gala's guests. Sat down to share a table with Sol, Torrie and her APD officer date, as well as several friendly Department of Justice employees, Jo's cheeks are already shining from her Armand de Brignac buzz when the first course comes out. When a plate of baked scallops is set before her, she forgoes silverware to pick one up with her fingers, nipping curiously at the gelatinous texture of the thing before taking a bite and then spitting it back out onto her plate.
"Oh, that is not edible," she declares matter-of-factly.