I remember tilting my head to admire the bright red gown worn by the woman on the cover of the magazine she was reading. The model was composing a letter, one gloved hand holding a postcard and the other lifting a pencil delicately to her chin. I found myself wondering what she was in the midst of writing, and to whom, before making a note of my own to relay that wondering to my Banker. He was always interested to hear such things.

“It’s a lovely picture, I think.” Camille’s voice drew my gaze away from the magazine and then she lifted it as though to invite me back.

“Yes, it is. And the dress. I have one like that.”

“Have you?” She smiled.

“Not precisely, but yes.”

And then I caught sight of the plain frock I’d been issued. There was no corset, the entire dress seemingly made from one length of material, though the sleeves might have been an exception. The year was 1906 and even a memory knew that all of North America was watching the Northeast for the standard of city style.

“It was much nicer than what I’m wearing now,” I said, without blushing. At the time, I wouldn’t have known how, not organically. So recently extracted, no one would have begrudged a reliance on my Source’s past and tendencies to sustain me in casual conversation. Instead, while I considered us equal proprietors over her memories, it seemed the present and the future should be entirely mine, and I took care to ensure that from now on my voice and mannerisms would be, too. As for Camille, a flicker of recognition crossed her face and she laid the magazine in her lap, a gloved forefinger keeping her place between the pages.

“I see. Then this is strange.” She said the second phrase more quietly than the first. When she squinted, her plump cheeks overwhelmed her hazel eyes so that they seemed to vanish into the rosy pink of her face. “Where are you from?”

Like all Mems, the question prompted me to recount the memory that spawned me, and when she’d heard it, she said she thought her husband and I should meet.