Juliette chuckled at his question, thinking back to the discarded cup of bloody Froyo from earlier. "Hmm," she paused and looked over the menu again.

The first time, she had ordered mango, which had been good, but she wanted to try a different flavour this time. Her eyes scanned the list next to the window, going over the many options.

The truck had everything from orange to peanut butter, and you could even mix two flavours if you so desires. Though, Juliette figured that orange and peanut butter may not be a good choice.

Eventually, she decided on a flavour, "I'll have the red velvet cake." She then looked to Memo to see what he would get.

THERE WERE SO MANY OPTIONS! A ton he was very sure he'd never heard of, and even more he suspected he hadn't heard of but couldn't be completely-ish sure (it was hard to be completely sure of anything with a memory like his).

And then there were some he did recognize, beyond the standard fruits.

"Huckleberry," he ordered without hesitation. Even if the little picture beside the name tag was definitely not a huckleberry. Huckleberries were not blue. They were red. And had more transparent skins than blueberries when properly ripe. And also were much smaller, and had a higher proportion of juice. And were more tart, less sweet. And their bushes were lacier, not so dense, and there wasn't a lowbush variety of huckleberry.

Okay, some things he could remember in excessive detail without bopping a patch of skin. Somethings were ingrained from childhood and had not yet been lost to make space for newer stuff. Huckleberries and wild berry identification was important! Not so much this far south and east, but still. Important.

Memo waved his card over the froyo cart's little reader, didn't think one bit about the number or how it related to his bank account, and tucked it and his wallet away before accepting the two cups of delicious frozen deliciousness and passing the darker, redder one to his companion.

...

All that and they both ended up with red froyo. But he didn't say it out loud! He was a forgetful airhead, not tactless.

"Cheers!" he said instead, lifting his froyo and grinning.

Juliette shifted her weight onto one leg as she waited for her Froyo. She watched as Memo ordered Huckleberry. She knew little of the fruit and what it looked like, but the picture next to the type was clearly a picture of blueberries. So, she was quite surprised when hus yogurt turned out to be red.

She grabbed her own off of the counter and swirled the spoon around the top to make a peak.

>>"Cheers!"

"Cheers," Juliette mimicked with a smile. She held up her yogurt and knocked it against his like one would have done with a champagne glass.

After a second she took it back and tried a spoonful, unsure of what to expect from her flavour. It was decent, although a little too sweet. It was still better than the bloody mango in the garbage, though.

She turned back to Memo and gestured to his yogurt with his spoon. "How does the huckleberry taste?" She asked him.

He always liked it when people went along with fun things, like toasting with frozen yoghurt cups even if there were people still staring at traces of blood. He waited a moment for the woman to taste her froyo before sampling his.

They didn't sweeten it! Not beyond the usual amount of added sweetness froyo normally had. Memo spun around on one foot with the plastic spoon sticking out of his mouth. It had been so long! He'd never been so glad to bleed on random strangers.

"It's tangy and tart and not all sugar and it actually tastes like huckleberries although not quite like I remember pulling them off bushes as a kid. But that was a long time ago and a long way away and I'm actually kind of surprised I remember it as much as I do, although when I do remember things it does tend to be super detailed, which I think I get to blame on my mutation but don't really know." Delicious spoonful number two, spin number two!

"How's your, er..." what had she ordered again??? "How's yours?!" Smooth save.

Juliette smiled at Memo's optimism. It was a nice change of pace to be around someone with so much enthusiasm than the cynicism of the rest of the world. She let off a chuckle as he spun. She wished she were able to be as care-free as he was. It was a slightly enviable trait.

His flavour sounded good, definitely better than hers, but she wouldn't tell him that.

"Red velvet," she reminded him. "It's good, although it could be a little less sweet. It's still very good, though." That last sentence sounded a little off, but she was trying hard not to offend him. He did buy it for her, after all.

This girl was great. She was nice and worried about him and didn't get worked up over reminding him of things from a moment before.

Memo decided. They needed to be friends. Very good friends, see-each-other-all-the-time friends. On which note...

He held out his rapidly emptying cup. "Why not cut in a bit of huckleberry-tart, then? Take a break from the sweet. Then you can enjoy the sweet more too!" That might also have been his experience because he tended to forget so quickly, but it was probably at least partially true for other people too. He wasn't that unusual.

"You've probably already told me twice or something, but is there anything else you were planning on doing today? Before you swept in to my rescue?" It was a very touching rescue, from what he remembered-without-fully-remembering.

>> "Why not cut in a bit of huckleberry-tart, then? Take a break from the sweet. Then you can enjoy the sweet more too!"

"Sure, that's a good idea," Juliette smiled and took a small spoonful of the huckleberry. Memo was right - it was delicious. It had just the right balence between sweet and sour. "Mmm," she sighed slightly, "that's good, thanks!"

She then took another spoonful of her red velvet. That tasted better, too. The slight bitterness of huckleberry cleared the way for the sweetness of the red velvet. The flavours worked well.

>>"You've probably already told me twice or something, but is there anything else you were planning on doing today? Before you swept in to my rescue?"

"I'm not sure if I told you or not," Juliette looked thoughtful as she tried to remember telling him. "Well, it doesn't matter. I'm a nurse, so I have a shift today. I have half an hour before I have to be there, though."

"What do you do?" She asked him curiously, gesturing to his company vest.

He grinned to see her pleasure, and then for the refreshing huckleberry taste when he tucked his next spoonful into his mouth. "A nurse? That's so cool! You must be so smart. I think I looked at a nursing program's requirements once, back in high school. So much hard stuff."

Oooh she wanted to know what he did? That wasn't special at all. "I sell flooring stuff at a department hardware store. I worked this morning - waiiiiiiitttt I'm still wearing my vest?"

He paused. He'd forgotten to put it away again, hadn't he. It definitely looked like that. Oops. His department manager and assistant store manager were going to shake their heads at him and be so disappointed but really, really not surprised. Did this count as free advertising? Or did it just look like he was skipping out on work to eat froyo and not even pretending to not be working?

If he were skipping out on work, he'd take his vest off. Scratch that option. It was way too airheaded, even for him. Also, arrogant. That wasn't something he remembered being called. Airheaded yes, arrogant no.

"I totally forgot to leave this at work when I finished my shift," he confessed cheerfully. "I guess I'll just wear it until I go back to work tomorrow so I don't forget it at home or wherever I take it off."

"All it takes is applying yourself," the woman assured him kindly, feeling sort of awkward at the comment. "It's hard work, but I enjoy it. Also, it means it's not that weird for me to be covered in blood."

"That might be sort of uncomfortable to sleep in," Juliette laughed at him cheerily. Memo was fun to be around, especially when he went into his own little world. He was like a bright light, unable to be put out, even by the blood squirting from his arm.

She thought about it for a moment, trying to think of something to bypass his terrible memory. "What if you put the vest next to your bed, or on your door or something? That way you couldn't leave without seeing it. Then there's no way you could forget to wear it, and you wouldn't have to sleep in it."

Applying himself - and remembering what he had learned, and paying tuition. Both were easier said than done, in his case. He wasn't salty about it, though. There were far more important things in his life, and he got by all right.

"I've slept in worse, and the marks go away as soon as I forget about them," he said easily. "I also only remember my keys because I can't get my door to stay closed without locking it, which requires keys, and forget my lunch more than half of the time. I can trip over it and still end up forgetting it, especially if I trip over it before I put on my boots."

Leaving the end of his spoon in his mouth to savour the last streaks of yoghurt, Memo meandered over to the nearest garbage bin to drop off his empty cup.

Memo had begun get rather off topic again. Or maybe it was on topic. It was difficult for Juliette to follow as he went to go throw out his yoghurt container. She tried to just nod, although he had lost her about half way through the second paragraph.

She looked at the little bit of Froyo still left in her cup and took another spoonful. She had been too lost to try and continue the same conversation, she instead she changed the topic.

"So do you have any plans for the rest of the day?" Juliette asked him curiously.

Plans? Hah what were plans he'd just forget them anyway. "Oh, I mostly make things up as I go along. I mean, I'd just forgot my plans anyway, probably. I don't forget everything, but y'know."

He tapped his chin thoughtfully, by chance more than intention just missing one of the stripes on his chin with his fingertip.

He'd been trying to think of something, hadn't he? Er. Um. ... Teensy bit awkward, forgetting something (nothing) in front of someone he'd barely met, even if he'd already bled all over her without need or cause.

"Well, we can't all remember everything," Juliette pointed out, just a little awkwardly, "there has to be a balance, right?" That sounded... Odd. Like a lie, which it pretty much was. At that point, she wasn't entirely sure how to respond, so she had started to spout nonsense. What a good first impression she was making.

She began to walk down the path at a leisurely pace, expecting Memo to follow. They had after all, been walking in tangent before. The street was nice that day, not cold, but with enough of a breeze to make a walk seem like the best way to go.

"So... Where are you from?" Juliette chimed after a moment, hoping that Memo would at least remember that. That was an integral part of someone, wasn't it? Then again, he had forgotten just about everything else. Planning a lunch with him would probably be like Juliette attempting to hit the bulls-eye with a dart - utterly hopeless.

"If my forgetfulness means someone else can remember lots, then I'll count it well spent," Memo said grandly, completing the playful mock heroism with a sweeping bow before ambling after the woman. Who's name..... he had completely forgotten, had he ever known it. Ah well. It wasn't like asking for it again would help, since he'd just forget it again most likely.

Oooh conversation. He did like conversation. "Canada, actually. Northwestern Canada, land of wild huckleberries on every mountain." Hah, he'd remembered what kind of froyo he'd had! Huckleberries angle bracket three. "But my mom and I moved down here when my dad died when I was a kid, so by now I've spent more time in the states. Dual citizen, and the last prime minister didn't get to revoke half of it!" Odd splinter of a memory. Whatever had been attached to it was very much forgotten, but somehow this fragment had survived something or other.

"I've never been to Canada," Juliette admitted. "It sounds a bit cold for my tastes, but maybe I'll give it a try one day. I've heard the mountains are beautiful."

She nodded along to Memo as he recounted his childhood. He remembered it a bit better than most other things, which was a good sign. He could hang on to some things. She wasn't sure if she should comment on his dad or not, though. Was that something that she was supposed to do? "I'm sorry about your dad," she said quietly.

After an awkward silent second, she remembered something.

"Oh!" Juliette exclaimed, making way for a poor subject change. "I have this thing that I'm supposed to do. Talking at schools, actually, and I'm supposed to give a lesson on first aid. I was thinking - no pressure of course - that you might want to help? I was thinking the whole injury recount thing would be good for the students to see and practice on. That came out wrong. I mean, the whole reality of the injury and the blood in front of them would make it seem real, I guess? It wouldn't be as bad as I'm making it sound. It wouldn't be anything you're uncomfortable with, of course."

She turned to him hopefully after her disjointed spiel, doing her best to keep her expression neutral as to not pressure him into it.