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

12. Dude, Where's My Phone?

From just outside the dressing room, I heard Freddie huff impatiently. "Have you got it on, yet?"

"Patience, grasshopper," I called back.

"What?" he asked, his tone defensive. "Who's a grasshopper?"

Fortunately the reference I'd flippantly made wasn't anachronistic. I explained, "It's from a TV show called Kung Fu! The Chinese guy keeps saying it, that's all."

He relaxed. "Oh, okay. That's better."

"What did you think I was talking about?"

"Never mind."

But it didn't take a superbrain to decipher what he had assumed I meant. Freddie knew he was slim and leggy just as much as I knew it. Hastily I scrawled another NFO (yes, I had my backpack in there with me): Physically self-aware, but hides it.

It was utterly astonishing, how much he loved shopping. While I'd dragged my feet around Kensington Market, he flitted from store to store like a butterfly among fragrant flowers (in white platforms, no less), never seeming to get enough of dropping a hundred pounds everywhere we went. I could give a meticulous rundown of our shopping spree so far. But since shopping is not my pleasure point, I won't. So let me sum up about three and a half hours (so far) of clothes hunting in a few lines of dialogue:

"Ooo. I like this."

"How much?"

"A lot, you goose, or else I wouldn't have picked it-"

"No, I mean, how much is it?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I do. It's important."

"That's the wrong approach to take. I could buy up this whole place right now if I wanted to. And you'd look even more ravishing than you already are, in this."

"Absolutely not."

"You say that every time, and then you change your mind."

"I mean it this time."

"Evie, darling. The least you can do is try it on."

And that's how I'd already ended up with four halter tops, three vests and corresponding button downs, two pairs of capris, two pairs of bell-bottom jeans, three pairs of shorts, two skirts, five dresses fit for any occasion, a vast assortment of lingerie (now, on those, I did in fact try them on without his visual approval), and four sets of pajamas. Oh yes, and three pairs of shoes. The man was a spending maniac.

NFO: "No" is apparently Freddie-speak for "yes."

Now, I was testing a new tactic. Maybe if I didn't make the crucial error of showing Freddie how this jumpsuit looked on me, and just made him take my word for it, we could move on. Of course, he picked it out. It was the latest fashion- and Freddie was all about fashion. But if this sleeveless, fuchsia nightmare with the parachute bell-bottoms and wacky, plunging v-neck collar fit the bill for "modern" fashion, I'd happily resign myself to boring button down tops and khakis.

Quietly I wormed and wiggled into the jumpsuit, so I could at least say I'd put it on. My fears were confirmed; I don't know what women back in the late seventies were smoking, but it enabled them to dress like that and keep a straight face. For the first time in my life, I actually appreciated 2017 couture. Ours isn't much better, to be fair, but at least our jumpers don't have legs that flare out so wide at the bottom that they look like lampshades.

"Mm," was all I said.

"Let me see!" Freddie insisted.

"It doesn't fit," I lied. "Too big."