"I don't know how to get rid of Janine" sighed Hannah. She was sure that it was the last thing Sacha wanted to hear about, and on this occasion that actually concerned her, but at the same time - well, Sacha had asked how she was and it'd just spilled out. "It's stupid, we've only been together - ugh - for a few weeks, but I just can't get rid of her. She's like a puppy or something."

"Well as long as she's doing better than humping your leg, I guess you're doing all right."

"Hah! Dirty girl."

"Says the girl who invited me back to her place on only the second occasion she met me."

"Did I really? Goodness. I'd forgotten."

Sacha was struck suddenly by the unexpected ease of the conversation between herself and Hannah: it seemed like something that hadn't been there before, and she wasn't sure when exactly it had arrived. Like anything easy, the moment she started thinking about it it suddenly became terribly difficult: she asked, awkwardly: "So why are you calling me? I mean, really?"

The directness of the question flustered Hannah, who had for her part been relaxing into the conversation. Now suddenly she had to put her guard up, or so it seemed: "Well, you're my friend, aren't you? Do I need an excuse? I was just ringing to say hi."

"Oh. Well I guess that's fair enough." Sacha felt confused, and even more confusingly a little disappointed, by this answer. Hannah was disappointed as well: she bunched her hand into a fist and shut her eyes tight until her skin went white, frustrated at an opportunity missed - worse, an opportunity seen and fled from. What was wrong with her? Why the hell was she with Janine? "Fucking hell, there should be some kind of place, like the R.S.P.C.A., where you can take girlfriends and leave them to be picked up and given a bed by somebody else."

"Yeah, sure" said Sacha, getting a little bored with the topic. She was accustomed by now to Hannah talking about herself at the expense of anything else. This awareness dripped from her words so that Hannah could hear that something was wrong, and could guess that it was probably something to do with her - but she didn't know what it was. She'd been fiercely independent for such a long time that she'd forgotten to some extent that it was just her life, just one life among many. Still, she at least realised that it was doing the conversation more harm than good, talking about herself and Janine. And to tell the truth, she was getting sick of constantly thinking about Janine, ruing the day that she'd kissed her and everything else - for a few brief moments, right now, she wanted to forget all about her. So as if in a daydream, she said:

"So how come you've never shown me your place?"

"Was I supposed to?" Sacha found Hannah's question perplexing. "You've never shown me yours."

"Do you ever come to Brunswick?"

"No."

"Exactly. But I'm in Fitzroy all the time. Seriously, I'd like to see where you live, find out a little more about the real Sacha!" She giggled, and if Sacha had been there instead of on the other end of a 'phone line Hannah would have been tempted to poke her playfully in the ribs or some such action.

"My flat's got fuck all to do with the 'real' me, Hannah. It's just some dump where I sleep. I can't stand the place myself; I sure as hell wouldn't want to show anyone else around."

"Why don't you find a new place?"

"I'm thinking about it, I really am. But in this town I wouldn't know where to start."

This got Hannah excited, and a sly grin spread itself wide across her lightly freckled face. "I'll help!" she said. "I've lived in so many houses in this town, I'm the fucking Queen of Real Estate. Meet me on the weekend, we'll start finding you a new place, honey."

Sacha thought about this, for what seemed to Hannah to be a painfully long time. But she could hardly argue with the offer, and with the inevitability of a rising tide the words flowed out of her mouth and down the 'phone line into Hannah's listening ear: "Sure, okay."