There was something that Sacha wanted to ask Hannah, but it took her a long time to ask it. She didn't have the courage until she'd had one-and-a-half glasses of red wine - or two glasses really, seeing as how the glasses Hannah was pouring the wine into were so extravagantly large. Sacha cleared her throat as if blowing away dust, and said:

"So does this mean we're gonna have another party here?"

Hannah didn't know exactly what she was talking about at first, because she and Shelly had been talking about the merits or otherwise of instant coffee, and Hannah couldn't figure out why that would mean that they were going to have a party. Eventually she got up to speed with Sacha's thought process, though:

"Oh, you mean because of the stimulus money! Well - sure, why not? I mean nine-hundred dollars can buy a lot of party, can't it?"

"We could hire a band!" Shelly suggested, wide-eyed with excitement. "If we pool your money and my money."

"We could hire a bar, some cool little cocktail bar. Make it ours for the night."

"Or we could get cocktail catering!"

"Oh, shit yeah!" Hannah turned to Sacha. "Great idea, Sash."

"'Cause the last party we had made kind of a mess, and I don't really know if I want to go through that again" Sacha explained.

"Oh."

"Plus this house really isn't actually that great for a party. The sitting-room's too small. The rest of the house is all squirrelly. And you can't expect people to hang around outside, out the back, not at this time of year, it's too cold."

"You feeling the cold, Canberra girl?" Hannah teased her.

"I've been in Melbourne too long" Sacha muttered.

"So what you're saying is, you don't want us to have a party" Hannah said, growing serious again.

"No."

"Uh-huh."

"I mean, but spend the money however you want to. It's your money. But if you're gonna consider me in your decision-making process, and there's no reason you should, but if you do then take into account that I'd rather not have a party. Please. But there's no reason you should let me tell you what to do with your money."

"Wait, so if you didn't want a party," Shelly said, "why'd you bring it up?"

Sacha stared into her wine-glass, and pretended to be confused. "Did I?" she said.