Thank you, I hope not to disappoint you!

Love this beginning!

Something I belatedly noticed about this page: Mel's line to the cabbie is "No, no! You can keep the change!" rather than something like "Here you go, keep the change!" as if she left a larger than expected tip and was insistent that they keep it. Combined with one of the qualities on her bio being "generous," I'm thinking that Mel may not be so much the spoiled brat that I initially wrote her off as, but more like a Spoiled Sweet type of character. (To the point that reading that trope's description reminds me of what I known about Mel to a T)

She may be spoiled, lazy and spends money like water, but I get the feeling that a sizable chunk of that money isn't blown on herself, but rather she's very generous with her friends in the form of taking them out and buying them gifts, is a very great tipper towards cab drivers and restaurant waiters and the like, and in general is nice and magnanimous towards everyone regardless of their wealth or social standing, even if she can be a bit insensitive at times. The fact that she's close friends with a low level office worker like Nat further confirms that for me, and I'm sure her all around good nature helps her adjust to her sudden change of circumstances better than a more stereotypical spoiled brat would. :)

You have hit it on the spot, actually. Mel is a very generous person, but her generosity has generally been enabled by her practically limitless access to funds. She has the potential to be extremely charismatic, but because she's so... well, lazy, she has tended to rely on her wallet to bring people into her fold, buying her friends drinks, meals, parties, trips, etc.

This is really telling of another one of her hangups (adding to her recklessness with money and her laziness), which will be her insecurity regarding her ability to build and maintain relationships. You can probably guess that, due to that reliance, she is really lacking in terms of actual friends, and that there won't be many people willing to help her in her hour of need. The exception is the one person whose life Mel impacted so much with her selfless generosity, that she may be the only one who actually sees Mel as a legitimate friend, even if they haven't seen each other in years. You probably can guess who I'm talking about. ;)

I guess I should've expected that Mel primarily relied on that method for getting friends and as a result most of her friendships aren't close despite having so many of them, a life of wealth and privilege making her value quantity over quality and being another of her pre-character development flaws.

You're right that I can guess which friend you're talking about. ;) Now I realize that learning the value of true friendship is most likely another important part of her character arc, since very soon she'll be getting a much smaller circle of four close friends...or at least three close friends and one frenemy, if her prior antagonistic relationship with Jen is anything to go by. XD