"So what'd you end up doing, then?" Kate asked.

"Nothing, really. We just sat and talked. Got something to eat."

"Went somewhere else for the food?"

"No, just at the same bar" Sacha said.

"So you stayed in the one place all night?" Kate said, hoping she'd misheard but knowing that she hadn't. "And talked?"

"Yeah."

"Sounds like a pretty boring date."

"God damn it, it wasn't a date!" Sacha exclaimed

"Well what was it, then? You were out all night in a bar with a boy, what would you call it?"

"I'd call it just being out with a boy. Men and women can just be friends, you know."

"I know that" Kate said. She could think of any number of reasons why that didn't sound like the situation Sacha was describing: for starters, because she was certain Sacha never talked to this Phillip guy ordinarily - as she would if he was a friend. But she didn't point that out to Sacha. She just asked: "What did you talk about?"

"Oh, stuff, you know . . ." Sacha replied.

Phillip had asked her, even though she'd told him not to, whether she'd ever travelled, and they'd talked about that for a while - but Sacha didn't tell Kate that, because what she'd explained to Phillip was that she'd been intending to go overseas for a year or more when she'd finished uni, but Kate had made her wait so that they could travel together, and Sacha had duly waited - but then it'd never happened. They'd never travelled. So Sacha had given up on waiting, and had moved to Melbourne instead because at least it was something.

But she didn't explain all that to Kate; she didn't tell Kate that that was what she and Phillip had talked about, because she didn't know how much of it Kate was aware of, she didn't know if Kate knew how much Sacha had given up, just on a promise from Kate that had never been fulfilled, and Sacha didn't want to mention it to Kate because she didn't want to make her younger sister upset. What was the point?

So Sacha said: "You know, just the weather, stuff like that. We just talked about stuff like that."

"God that sounds like the most boring date in the world" Kate said derisively.