As it turned out Sacha didn't meet up with Rona the next day - she returned Rona's call but Rona wasn't there. Anyway, Sacha's money was running low and there were no job prospects in the foreseeable future so she could live without going out for a while.

That attitude didn't last. By Friday she hadn't got around to calling Rona back, and Rona for some reason hadn't called her back, and anyway Sacha had figured out that, given that Rona was the only person in Melbourne she'd given her 'phone number to, it must have been her who gave the number to Alain - so Sacha didn't really want to hang out with Rona right at this moment, for fear of the awkwardness that might arise. But on the other hand there was no-one else in town she felt like hanging out with. She could call her sister back in Canberra, but her sister was almost certainly out partying somewhere. She could call her parents, except that then she'd have to pretend that everything was going all right, because she didn't feel like she could stand her parents' consolations.

So she wrapped a scarf around her neck and hit the town. She started by heading to Lygon Street to see if there was a film worth seeing, but nothing took her fancy. She went across the road and browsed for books, picking some off the shelves and managing to read a short story or a two on the sly, eavesdropping on the conversations of students over by the History shelves, laughing at herself in a subdued way as she heard people complaining about the cold still hanging over the city. If this was what they called cold . . .

Eventually she exhausted the possibilities of the bookshop. She went down the road a little and thought about getting a coffee, but changed her mind. She decided to catch a tram into the city.

She got off at Swanston Street and quickly made her way elsewhere. She hadn't been in Melbourne long enough to know what to expect on a Friday night, and now she was feeling nervous and thinking about heading back to her flat.
After a quick walk 'round the city she had turned towards Bourke Street to catch the tram back to Fitzroy, when she passed by a club and her progress was suddenly halted by someone calling her name:

"Hey, Sacha!"

Sacha turned around to see who it was. It was Hannah.