picked a handful of violets in my name

I'll probably poke at it some more, but in context, reworking it exactly as you suggest takes away a bit of the information I'm trying to get across - I think it's the missing "only" or "just" or whatever. She genuinely expected to have to look up, even just a little bit, and she doesn't, and it's weird (and about to become weirder - she is used to liking masculine guys, and he just isn't that, not at all).