Green Neon

20 Men overboard

Tom overslept. He rushed to the bathroom for his morning routine, got dressed, wolfed down two slices of white bread, drank a glass of water and stuffed a few utensils into his beach bag.

It wasn't until he was on the subway that he had time to think about the crucial question of the day. Would Sophia be at the bus station in Athens? He figured the chances were small, but not entirely hopeless, if he put her father's strictness on one side of the scale and her slyness on the other.

His heartbeat accelerated as he neared the end of his journey. With a loud pounding in his chest, he entered the sprawling grounds of the bus station and immediately spotted the group of three girls standing in front of the ticket office, with the most beautiful girl in the world in their midst.

He ran to the trio, greeted Sophia's friends with a handshake and kissed his girlfriend on both cheeks. He had decided to buy diving goggles, a snorkel and flippers before going to Nikos, so after Dora and Maria had said goodbye, he strolled with Sophia to a street behind the bus station where there were a number of small shops.

They found a grocery store with two tables outside. He suggested having a Nescafé here, while Sophia insisted on buying some sesame cookies too. With the delicious slush of pastry and sweet coffee in his mouth, Tom mumbled:

"What did your father say last night?"

"What do you mean? What should he have said? I told him I wanted to go to the museum with Dora and Maria today and he said, fine, have fun."

Tom could hardly believe that Sophia's father hadn't mentioned that he had seen their kiss, so he asked again:

"He didn't say anything else?"

Sophia didn't know what to make of the strange interrogation.

"I don't understand what you want."

Tom told her about his encounter with her father.

"That's strange. My father arrived a few minutes after me and he didn't mention seeing you. Could it be that he didn't notice you?"

Tom was sure, because he had looked Sophia's father straight in the eyes.

They speculated as to what that meant, but couldn't make sense of it. Tom had not expected this outcome in the least and was not reassured at all. Something was wrong here.

After breakfast they walked down the street a little more until they saw a shop with an exceptional range of goods which consisted mainly of screws, nuts, nails and hooks of all sizes and materials.

They stepped into the semidarkness of the store, which was a complete mess. In the corner they found a wide range of diving goggles, snorkel and flippers – things that didn't seem to match the rest of the merchandise.

A young man in gray coveralls with hands smeared with oil greeted them. Sophia told him what Tom wanted, and the shop assistant asked him to try on diving goggles. Tom also chose flippers that roughly matched his shoe size.

There were no price tags on the goods, so Sophia had to ask the seller. He thought back and forth, calculated under his breath and then said a number. Tom converted the drachma amount in his head and came up with less than 10 marks, which gave him an idea: what if he bought Nikos' equipment at the same time?

He shared his idea with Sophia, who smiled at him slyly and entered into a long discussion with the seller. In the end she was able to bargain it down to the equivalent of 15 marks for two complete sets of equipment, and there was also a large straw bag to transport the purchases.