At the café, Rona and Phuong were still smilingly avoiding each other's questions. By this conversational technique they'd managed to cover all manner of topics: money (not enough, of course); films (Rona bemoaned the fact that she couldn't afford to see anything at the Film Festival; Phuong had looked extensively through the programme but wasn't really taken by anything in it); music (Phuong was not the sort of person who pretended to know what Rona was talking about when she didn't recognise the name of some band - which after the magazine and its interminable one-upmanship, Rona found enormously refreshing). In fact they'd talked about just about everything except the one thing Phuong wanted to talk about, and Rona didn't.

It all became too much for Phuong eventually, and she grabbed Rona's hands, looked her square in the eyes, and laughed: "All right! Please, just tell me who this boy is already. I'm dying of curiosity here!"

"Pfft." Rona curled her lip and looked away. "He's nobody. Some loser, obviously."

"Come on!" Phuong shook Rona's hands in frustration.

"Oh, all right." Rona commenced to tell Phuong all about the young man from the record store: about how she went in every couple of weeks to sell off the review copies of the C.D.s she received via the magazine. Despite her anger at him for not showing up at the gig the previous week, and much to her frustration, she felt a warmth rising inside her with each word she spoke, and her heart starting to quiver. Phuong noticed the corners of Rona's mouth turning up absent-mindedly. She couldn't help but giggle.

"What is it?" demanded Rona, remembering suddenly that she was meant to be in a bad mood.

Phuong placed one hand carefully over her mouth, fingers splayed. "You really like this boy!" she said quietly, amazed. Her eyes gleamed.

"Shut up, I do not."

"But you do! Look at yourself! See! And now you're blushing!"

"I am not!" Rona exclaimed, but she could feel it was true. She buried her face in her hands to stifle a laugh. "Oh, for fuck's sake!" she growled.

"You're smitten!" said Phuong, pointing a finger as if in accusation. "You're so smitten!"

"It's so stupid!" squealed Rona, shaking her head in disbelief. "I don't even know the guy, I talk to him for two minutes every couple of weeks, it's fucking stupid."

"Well he must like you as well" said Phuong, "otherwise why would he say 'yes' when you asked him out?" Rona just looked at her. "Oh shoosh" said Phuong, even though Rona hadn't said anything. "You don't even know why he didn't make it to the gig. Have you been to the shop to find out?"

Rona looked away sheepishly. "No" she said, very quietly so that Phuong could barely hear. "I've been too busy being angry." Phuong smiled, and Rona shut her eyes and muttered to herself: "Dammit!"