Melina Breaking Free. Dimitra Mantheakis

of them.

      Melina took little part in the incessant chatter. Her eyes were focused on a shiny expensive-looking sports car. The vehicle stopped a few meters away from the girls. Its driver, a handsome man of about thirty five locked it and went to sit at the next table, ordering a coffee.

      “Cool guy!” whispered Sofia so as not to be heard by the man. Melina could not take her eyes off him. She was impressed by the flashy car and realized that she also liked its driver. It looked like the stranger was flush with money. At some moment the man turned and looked without interest at the girls making them hurriedly take their eyes off him. His gaze, concealed by his dark fashionable sun glasses stopped at Melina. Her unpolished, almost wild beauty impressed him. “Nice piece!” he thought. “I hope she also has a good body.” From where he was sitting he could only see Melina’s face. The rest of her was hidden from view by the torsos of the other girls.

      Half an hour later the girls stood up and started for their homes which were in different directions. The man was waiting to see Melina stand up, to judge her as a whole. “She has a very feminine body!” he noted, feeling a wave of desire to possess the girl overtake him as it coursed through his veins. As soon as the young woman had gone round the corner he got up and quickly went to his car. He followed Melina’s passage from the opposite side of the street.

      “I hope I can stop her somewhere to say a couple of words to her,” he thought. Ten blocks further on the girl turned left into an uphill dirt road. Stepping on the accelerator not to lose her the man approached and said to her “Miss, can I talk to you?” Melina did not reply, but smiled almost imperceptibly. The stranger pulled up the car at the side of the road and started walking next to her.

      “Please go away!” Melina said to him. “My neighbours will see us and I’ll be in trouble with my family.”

      “Tell me your name and when we can meet. My name is Paris and I’m from Athens…”

      “Oh, so he is from the capital!” noted Melina. “That’s positive.” She turned and looked at him directly, studying his face. He had attractive regular features and when he smiled there was a flash of perfect white teeth. Paris lowered his sunglasses, resting them on his nose and his eyes, blue as the spring sky, fixed themselves playfully on her.

      “Have I passed the test?” he asked her. Melina laughed. He was very cute and spontaneous. “I’m Melina,” she said.

      “You couldn’t be called anything else, pretty and sweet as you are!” he teased. “When will I see you again?” he asked her.

      Melina opened her mouth to refuse but his hand reached out and squeezed her elbow.

      “Please don’t say no! I only want ten minutes of your time!”

      The truth was that Paris had impressed Melina from the first moment. She told him she would meet him at sundown at eight where the beach ended and the rocks began.

      “I’ll find the spot, Melina,” he saidblowing her a kiss as he entered his car and in a few moments he was gone around a bend in the street.

      Melina looked around to see if there was a neighbour on a balcony or at a window. Luckily she didn’t see anyone. She went home and spent the next few hours until eight bringing back again and again the image of the stranger, impressed as she was not only by his appearance and by the expensive car that gave him more status in her eyes, but also by his relaxed manner and his easy ability to approach the opposite sex. Yes! She liked Paris and wanted very much to see him. Immediately though an unpleasant thought came across her. What would she wear for their meeting? She had such a limited set of clothes! She went to the makeshift wardrobe that contained all the family’s wear and started searching through the section that was hers. She looked at two or three items that were hanging there. As designs they were not worth talking about and were so worn by time that they would look as if they had come from a waste bin, even though they had just been washed. Her heart tightened again. How tired she was of not even having the essentials, how disgusted she was by poverty and its constant privations! It was so unfair that she couldn’t buy a new, even cheap, dress and to have to make do with hand-me-downs or clothes borrowed on special occasions from her friends and being dependant on others’ charity.

      “When will this martyrdom, this humiliation, end?” she wondered for the thousandth time.

      She found a T-shirt and a skirt that didn’t show signs of constant wear. She would wear these at the meeting that she was determined to attend. She washed her hair which gleamed when she let it down over her back. She would have wanted to have lipstick to brighten up her lips, but it was an item that was beyond her means.

      “It doesn’t matter, I’ll be a natural beauty!” she sarcastically said to herself. At ten to eight she was already at the spot where she was to meet Paris. On the way there she thought that she may be going to the beach for nothing and the most likely outcome was for the chap not to show up at all; that his whole approach had been nothing more than a joke on her. Her heart leaped when she saw his car parked at a distance and him standing next to it and smoking.

      “Welcome!” he said to her when she approached.

      “Do you want us to stay here or to go somewhere else?” he asked her.

      “Let’s leave here as soon as possible not to be seen by anyone!”Melina said. “I don’t feel like provoking gossip and causing problems…”

      Paris opened the passenger door, put up the car top and sat behind the steering wheel. In a few minutes the car was swallowing up the country road and the wind as it rushed in through her open window was tousling the girl’s rich mane of hair. Paris sneaked glances at her.

      “She is very beautiful and unaffected, despite the rags she is wearing,” he thought.” Imagine what she’ll look like if properly dressed and if she goes to have her hair done and face made up! She’ll be a true Goddess!”

      Melina on the other hand thought that his light-blue long sleeved shirt suited him well while his discreet aftershave blending with the smell of the leather seats gave her a sensation of pleasure. It was the first time she had been in such a fine car; it was the first time that she experienced such luxury and she wanted to savour every moment. She was greatly flattered by the fact that this cosmopolitan man had noticed her and had chosen to go out with her.

      “Do you know somewhere where we can eat? I’m a stranger here and haven’t any idea of things around here.”

      Melina said that she knew a village on the side of the mountain that she had heard was scenic and had a good taverna. She herself had never been there. Besides which it was only a few kilometers away from where they were at that moment. Paris turned the wheel, following her directions, and the highly-tuned car with a murmur started up the steep road which wasn’t in the best state of repair. Fifteen minutes later they arrived in the centre of the village. Huge plane trees spread across the flagstoned square and several tables were set out in the open space while rushing water bubbled in channels to the left and right of them.

      “What a lovely place!” exclaimed Melina.

      “It is certainly idyllic!” agreed Paris, leading her to a table hidden behind the trunk of a huge tree. They sat down and ordered food. The platter of grilled meat gave off a delectable aroma when it arrived at their table. Melina wanted to gobble everything down in a flash, but held herself back for her escort not to see that she was famished.

      Paris watched her empty the plates of delicious and well-cooked meat with such appetite. He didn’t know that at her home they only ate meat twice a year or perhaps on one or two other occasions when invited to a wedding or a baptism. When they had finished their meal they stared into one another’s eyes for a while, slowly drinking their wine.

      “You impressed me from the first moment I saw you in the square!” Paris began. “I would like to know more about you…”

      Melina told him, in five short phrases, everything that had to do with her. She didn’t have anything spectacular to say about herself. Her biggest accomplishment was her high school diploma.