In the Year of the Cat (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

9. A Call from K...

I held the floral patterned, button-down shirt up against me and looked at where it fell.  Hm.  Was this the late seventies' casual style?  I was trying to be open-minded, but open-minded and money-minded are two very contradictory ideas.  I liked the price; the look, not so much.  This was far too big in the waist anyway; I was a small in this style, easy. 

"Do you have any of these in a smaller size?"  I asked the washed-out woman running the stall.

"That's the smallest it gets," she said.  "But I dare say, it wasn't meant for your likes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She pointed at the banner across the front of the stand.  "These are men's shirts, love."

"Oh," I muttered, "Sorry."  Cheeks burning, I laid the shirt down and began edging away to whatever other stall where I had not yet completely embarrassed myself.

Want to know a secret?  I hate shopping.  I absolutely loathe it.  No, correction.  I hate shopping for clothes.  One hour in a department store, drowning in the paisleys and the polyesters and the overbright colors jumping out from every side, and I'm wiped out from visual overload.  And I'd been in shopping mode most of the day, starting the second I got out of the cab- along with apparently everyone else in the city (but then, it was a Saturday after all; this was before the Internet, people had to do something to pass the time back then).  True, there was plenty to see at Kensington Market, certainly countless other items I would have preferred to peruse instead of racks of clothes.  But I was on a mission.

As discreetly as I could, I checked the tracker, and sighed again.  My hands were empty; my venture, unsuccessful.  Could I go back now?

Then a stall advertising good, old-fashioned, regular t-shirts caught my eye.  Just what I had in mind!

Another woman, but younger and friendlier than the last, greeted me.  "My dear!  Aren't you suffocating in that thing?"  She gestured toward my turtleneck.

True, the place was warm, and warmer than I was used to as interiors go.  It's altogether possible Kensington Market didn't even have air conditioning yet.  But it wasn't all that bad.

I shook my head.  "This is nothing compared to Texas.  You can fry an egg on the shady part of the sidewalk, this time over there."

She showed me a few articles she had on display, many of them very "fetching" (now, THERE'S a word I'd heard a lot that day- a great word, though) and one or two I would actually have liked to purchase.  But I turned my attention instead to the plain t-shirts.  I wasn't about to sponge off Freddie's bank account for pretty things I might not ever get the chance to wear.

The lady watched me run through stacks of multicolored tees.  I chose a simple red solid and a white.  "This will do fine."

"Anything else?"

"Don't think so.  I'll keep it simple, like usual."

Finally she could stand it no longer and she asked me, "Tell me, how do you expect to catch yourself a man with an attitude like that?"

I laughed.  "Ma'am, I'm not here to catch men, I'm here to get through."

She gave me a knowing look.  "My dear, we're all here to catch men, whether we like it or not.  Oh, good.  You're not one of those women's libbers, I can tell because you let me say that without launching into a tirade.  But it's true, you know.  Question is, are you going to bait the hook?"

"Oh, ma'am, believe me, I would, except the little pond I'm swimming in right now is a little- shall we say, dangerous?  I mean, you could hang a bare, rusty hook over the surface, and he'd jump at it."