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The Wedding Picture<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Oh, I do, I do! It fits me fine but\u2026 I can\u2019t afford it, I\u2019m afraid. Another time.\u2019<\/p>\n Yiota told the village peddler, Mr. Giorgos, on the phone, letting out a throaty \u2018Bye\u2019.<\/p>\n Dina was sitting at the sofa, her Geography schoolbook on her lap, staring at her parents\u2019 wedding photo hanging on the living room wall. Opposite her the setting sun illuminated the balcony door. Black and white, the outline of the newlyweds blurred, as if penciled by kids, ruler-stiff bodies, the constipated smile of Gioconda on both faces. She liked the dress, the flowery lace along the neckline and the hem of the sleeves and the skirt. It was champagne-white, rather than paper-white and starched, like cardboard. Yiota had told her that it wasn\u2019t actually her real wedding dress, or Dina\u2019s dad\u2019s own trouser suit. \u2018No money for such luxuries\u2019, she\u2019d said. They were both the result of the photographer\u2019s artistic endeavours. Common practice those days \u2013 the late 60s. Like arranged marriages. The kind they had.<\/p>\n \u2018Never seen him before our wedding day,\u2019 Yiota would tell her best friend. \u2018We smelt each other like sniffing dogs on our first night together. I would\u2019ve taken a better pick,\u2019 she\u2019d say.<\/p>\n Yiota pattered out through the balcony door and leaned against the rails after hearing a car rev \u2013 for the umpteenth time that afternoon. \u2018Ohi. Not him,\u2019 she whispered. Then the phone rang. Yiota leapt across the room and picked it up. \u2018Right,\u2019 she said and clanked the receiver on its cradle as if dropping a steamy-hot casserole lid. \u2018Your dad won\u2019t be coming to dinner. Going out with friends,\u2019 she mumbled. Hardly had she slumped down in the armchair, when she sprang up and dashed to the phone again. With firm fingers she dialed, took a deep breath and said, \u2018Ne, Giorgo, I\u2019m taking the dress. Bring it over tomorrow morning, when hubby is at work, you know\u2026\u2019 She let out a fake, girlish giggle and hung up.<\/p>\n Dina glanced over at the wedding picture. Whitish dress against blackish suit, a bouquet of bright red roses in the bride\u2019s grip. Added by the photographer, of course. A cluster of scarlet blooms against the smudgy space between the couple she\u2019d never noticed before.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou<\/strong> lives in Athens, Greece but writes in English. She holds a BA(Hons) in Literature and an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Her stories have appeared in print and online in several literary magazines (including IS & T). Her first short story collection entitled Black Greek Coffee i<\/em>s available from Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Wedding Picture \u2018Oh, I do, I do! It fits me fine but\u2026 I can\u2019t afford it, I\u2019m afraid. Another time.\u2019 Yiota told the village peddler, Mr. Giorgos, on the phone, letting out a throaty \u2018Bye\u2019. Dina was sitting at the sofa, her Geography schoolbook on her lap, staring at her parents\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10916"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10919,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10916\/revisions\/10919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}