This has not been proof read, and I'd really appreciate it if anybody could tell me any grammatical errors that I might have made. I'm only human after all.
The next morning, Jared hurried downstairs to Sarah's unit with two cups of coffee in hand. He shifted both mugs carefully to his left hand and knocked on her door.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Knocked again.
"Are you looking for Sarah?" an elderly lady asked Jared as she poked her head out from her apartment next to Sarah's.
"Yes, actually. I am."
"You'd have to get up pretty early in order to catch her most week-days," the woman explained. "She works at a school, you know, and has to get in early in order to prepare her lesson plans and such."
"Yes, of course," Jared agreed. "I was just unaware of how early that she left."
"I see." The woman adjusted her thick glasses and regarded Jared closely.
"Are you her boyfriend?"
"Yes."
"That is wonderful! I've known Sarah for years, and she's never shown much interest in dating. I tell her, honey, you should find a nice young man to settle down with, and then you can quit teaching!"
"Sarah loves teaching," Jared said, a bit argumentatively.
"You really think that she enjoys waking up at 5 AM to get to school by 7, only to spend her entire day around bratty young adults who have no respect for her, only to come home completely exhausted and annoyed at the world in general that produced such children?" the woman asked. Jared gave her a completely baffled look.
"It's not the obnoxious children nor the tedious hours that keeps Sarah working at the school year after year, you know," Jared said. "It's those few children that she sees that spark of intelligence, creativity in… that Sarah sees a reflection of herself at her age. Before realities became too harsh for her." The woman offered Jared a slow, knowing smile.
"It seems like it would be such a waste to waste that coffee when you went to all of that trouble to make it for Sarah," she said. "Why don't you come in for a spell?"
"Alright," Jared agreed as he stepped closer to her apartment.
Sarah clamped the bag of fast food that she'd picked up on her way home and dug her keys out from her pocket. "Oh, Sarah dear?" Mrs. Kelley said as she poked her head out from her apartment door.
"Yeah?" Sarah said around a mouthful of paper bag.
"That boyfriend of yours came looking for you maybe half an hour after you left this morning," the old woman said.
Sarah shoved her house key into the lock, took the bag out from her mouth, and gave Mrs. Kelley a confused look. "Boyfriend?"
"Yes. Mr. Tall, blond, and British who moved into a unit upstairs," Mrs. Kelley explained. Sarah heaved an annoyed sigh.
"I don't know what he told you, but he's not my boyfriend," Sarah protested. She quickly unlocked her door.
"That's not what he said. He seemed to know an awful lot about you, dear. He brought you coffee, the exact way that you like it. I hate to see good coffee go to waste, so I invited him in to drink it with me, and we talked for about two hours."
"Well, I don't know what you two talked about for such a long time, but I only just met the man yesterday," Sarah said as she opened her door.
"Oh? Are you sure?"
"Quite sure."
"It's only just that he seemed to know so much about you." Mrs. Kelley stepped away from her door and walked closer to Sarah. "He knew about why you keep teaching, even when you hate it," she whispered, as if it was the greatest secret in the world.
"I told him about my job and about my passion for play-acting when I was younger," Sarah said with an absent sniff. "Anybody could have pieced that together."
"Well, he sure seemed exceptionally passionate to talk about you."
"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't encourage him, Mrs. Kelley. And I'm not in." Sarah went into her apartment and closed the door with a firm snap. She heaved another annoyed sigh and shook her head as she locked the door back up and went into the kitchen to get her dinner out from the take-out bag. Sarah walked over to the chair by the window, which had the tiniest view of the street below, picked up the novel that she'd been slowly making her way through, and started in on her burger as she flipped to where she'd left off.
She'd barely taken one bite when she spotted a lone figure walking down the sidewalk. Sarah frown— it was Jared. She'd shown him to the Japanese restaurant because she knew what it was like to not know the places around her new home, and she'd felt almost obligated to dine with him. And his company hadn't been completely unpleasant.
But then… in the elevator… Sarah groaned out loud and buried her head in her book in frustration. One meal together and an awkward kiss in the elevator, and the guy was introducing himself to the other occupants in the apartment building as her boyfriend? The guy had some serious boundary issues.
On one hand, she should probably go and tell him that that sort of behavior was completely unacceptable, borderline creepy meets restraining order.
On the other, Sarah did not want to have to face him after last night, and figured that maybe if she ignored him, he'd eventually get the message.
Just as she'd come to the decision to ignore him, somebody knocked softly on her door. She jumped a little, but remained perfectly still and silent in the hopes of giving off the impression that nobody was home.
"Dear? Are you still looking for Sarah?" Sarah heard Mrs. Kelley ask.
"Yes." There was no mistaking that deep, British voice.
"Well, you just missed her! She came by long enough to grab her coat before she left again!" Bless Mrs. Kelley. Sarah didn't even have to give any reason to her elderly neighbor and she was more than willing to lie for Sarah.
"I see." There was a beat of silence. "Will you make sure that she gets this the next time you see her?"
"Yes, of course dear."
"Thank you. Have a nice evening, Mrs. Kelley."
"You, too, dear." Sarah watched as a shadow passed in front of her door, and then she took a giant bite of her burger once it had passed. Then, she put her book face-down on the arm of the chair and went into the kitchen to grab a napkin from the take-out bag. She'd just wiped the mustard off her face when somebody knocked on her door.
"Sarah? It's Mrs. Kelley. Jared is gone," the old woman said on the other side of the door. Sarah went to open it, and ushered her neighbor inside. "He left this with me to give to you." She offered Sarah a single red rose with a note tied around the stem with yellow ribbon.
Sarah silently accepted the flower, and reached over to flip the light on so that she could read the note.
Sarah,
I do apologize if I have made you uncomfortable, and I hope that you can forgive me. I much enjoyed your company last night, and I hope that you'll agree to see me again.
—Jared
"Ooh, I do hope that you'll forgive him for whatever he did, Sarah dear!" Mrs. Kelley exclaimed as Sarah finished reading the note. "He's such a nice young man, and so good looking! Ooh, if I were only 60 years younger!"
"Yes, but what about Mr. Kelley?" Sarah asked. The man had died about ten years ago, which meant that Sarah had never met him. But she still felt as if she had, because of how often that her neighbor talked about the love of her life.
"I love Arthur, and I'll continue to love him until the day that I die, but he was not British nor a published author!" Mrs. Kelley said. "Here, dear. He gave me something. It's in my apartment." Sarah put the flower down on the table where she put all of her mail, and followed her neighbor over to her apartment. There, the elderly woman went over to her coffee table and picked up a book, which she then presented to the younger woman. "Jared told me that it was his best-selling novel. Of course, when he gave it to me, he reassured me that just because it was the best-selling of his books doesn't necessarily mean anything in comparison to other people's novels."
"Yes, he told me that he wasn't a best-selling author," Sarah said as she looked at the cover art. It was simple, a girl with a sword in her hands who stood before a dark forest while a white owl flew over her head. The swirling gold lettering at the top said "The Princess's Lament" and then it said Jared Garfield at the bottom. "Do you mind if I borrow this? I'll get it back to you as soon as possible."
"Of course not, dear. I wouldn't have shown it to you if I didn't intend for you to read it, after all. You can read it and let me know if it'll be worth the strain on my old eyes." Mrs. Kelley patted Sarah's hand fondly.
"Well, thanks for the book, Mrs. Kelley. I won't keep you up any later," Sarah said. She turned around and went back to her own apartment, where she quickly finished her dinner before she curled up on her bed and started to read "The Princess's Lament".
Although it had been a bit tedious to talk to Sarah's elderly neighbor, who was exceptionally hard of hearing and kept grabbing his ass, Jared had considered it to be a bit of an information gathering mission. After all, who would know Sarah's schedule better than Sarah's busy-body, elderly neighbor?
So that was why Jared knocked on Sarah's door promptly at 6 AM the next morning, again, with two cups of coffee balanced in his left hand. A moment later, he was rewarded by the rough sound of the deadlock sliding back and the door opened a crack. "Oh. It's you." From what little Jared could see of her, she was dressed in a dressing robe, and her hair was rather bedraggled. Had he woken her?
"Good morning to you, too, my dear," Jared said. "I brought you coffee." The door closed, and he heard Sarah undo the chain before she opened the door fully.
"Damn right for you to bring me coffee," Sarah said as Jared handed over one of the cups. "After all, I spent all last night reading your stupid novel."
"My novel?" Jared asked with an air of false innocence.
"Yes, your novel!" Sarah hissed as she motioned towards the sofa, where Jared saw "The Princess's Lament" lying face-down on the arm of the sofa. "I kept telling myself that I needed to put it down and get some sleep, but every single god-damned chapter was so evilly ended that I would promise myself that I would go to bed after the next chapter. And before I knew it, it was 4 AM, and I hadn't slept a god-damned wink." She took a long swallow from the coffee mug Jared had given her. "Mm, you are magic."
"I like to think so, yes," Jared agreed with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
"Listen, I promise that we will talk, but I'm running late," Sarah said as she put the coffee cup down on her counter. She ushered him out of her apartment.
"But what about my mug?"
"I'll return it!" Sarah insisted before she shut the door in Jared's face. She leaned against the door for a moment and inhaled slowly before she released her breath in a giant whoosh.
Five minutes later found Sarah leaving the apartment building, and running to catch the next bus before it left. As she sat down in an empty seat and hugged her backpack to her chest, she pondered Jared. It was one thing for him to guess about her motives for staying in the teaching profession, but it was another thing completely for him to have randomly guessed how she liked her coffee: two sugars with just the barest hint of nutmeg and cinnamon.
Sarah still couldn't get over the feeling that she'd met Jared somewhere before. He claimed that they'd never met, but she wasn't so sure about it. And when she'd read "The Princess's Lament", she couldn't help but feel as if she already knew the story. Which was odd, because she probably would have remembered reading such an amazing book. Or if she'd seen the plot on TV, in a movie, or even on stage before. Because it was such a memorable plot.
After her conversation about metaphors and Jared's own admission about what he wrote about, Sarah had been expecting something that was just so completely dripping in metaphors, that finding them would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. However, if Jared had intended for the book to be some sort of bigger picture message, it was completely lost in Sarah.
Although, the longer she thought about it, the less the title made sense. Although the novel was mainly told from the point of view of Sally, Sarah got the impression that a better title for the book should have been "The King's Lament". He was mainly painted as the antagonist, the one who stole Sally from her bed and forced her to march thousands of miles to his kingdom because he was madly in love with her, but at the same time, Sarah found it difficult to actually call him the bad guy. She seriously felt sorry for him, especially at the end when Sally rejected his love.
His novel would be the first topic of conversation after Sarah got home from work.
Of course, what she hadn't considered was that he would be out when she got back to the apartment building. She hadn't even stopped at her apartment to drop off her bag, and had taken the elevator straight to the seventh floor.
As Sarah pondered this dilemma, she remembered that she'd seen Jared coming back from somewhere a little bit after she'd come home last night. Maybe he actually did have a day-job, after all.
Sarah had just taken her bag off from her back and was searching for a scrap of paper and a writing utensil when the elevator dinged and Jared stepped out into the hall. Sarah straightened up as Jared walked closer to her. "Good evening, Sarah," he said once they were only a few feet away. "I was not expecting to see you outside my apartment."
"I was looking for you," Sarah explained. "I just got home. Well, from work." She pushed her hair away from her face and offered him a hesitant smile.
"I apologize that I was out when you returned," Jared said casually.
"No, you probably have a job or something that you need to go to," Sarah said quickly.
"I do not; I was simply exploring the neighborhood a little." Upon Sarah's confused look, Jared went on. "To see what there is to see here. After all, I cannot always rely upon the word of a pretty woman that I met in the lift to tell me where the green grocers is, the local cinema, and any other restaurants."
"Oh, right," Sarah said absently. She shifted from foot to foot.
"Would you like to accompany me to one of the restaurants I discovered?" Jared offered. "You've probably been there before, but I have not, though I would like to try."
"Yes, alright," Sarah agreed. "Just let me go down to my apartment real quick and put my bag down and grab a jacket."
"Of course." Jared followed Sarah downstairs and into her apartment.
"See? There's your mug over there and it's perfectly unharmed," Sarah said with a dismissive wave of her hand towards the kitchen sink; Jared mug sat in it with coffee dregs at the bottom and a slight lipstick print around the rim. Sarah vanished into her room for a moment and then came out with a jacket and a purse.
"You couldn't even rinse it out?" Jared asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Oh for fuck's sake," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. She tugged Jared away from her sink and pushed him out the door. "In the book, King George was not intended to be the bad guy, was he?" Sarah asked as they got onto the elevator.
"I know it's been about ten years since I wrote 'Princess's Lament', but could you refresh my memory? I can't seem to recall ever having written that George was the bad guy."
"You didn't, but the way that George plucked Sally out from her bed into the middle of a forest, and the general way that Sally thought of him for most of the book sort of indicated that he was the bad guy."
"Yes, but after Sally reached his castle…?"
"He sent her back home," Sarah said slowly. "Which brings me to another point of discussion: why did you name the book 'Princess's Lament'? It seemed to me that George was more lamenting than Sally ever did." Jared looked a little startled, like he had never honestly considered what Sarah had just said.
"You don't think that Sally was upset because she was put down into the middle of a forest and instructed to go to George?" Jared asked.
"Upset, yes. I think that anybody could be," Sarah said as the doors slid open and they walked through the lobby and outside. There, Jared guided Sarah by her elbow down the sidewalk. "But I don't think that she was exceptionally grief-stricken, however. Nobody she met along the way actually died. Sally seemed more annoyed than sad. George, however…"
Instead of an answer, Jared only offered Sarah a slow, coy smile. It was the knowing smile of a math teacher who knew the answer to an exceptionally difficult smile, but refused to divulge the final answer to his students. And it frustrated Sarah to no end to be so tantalizingly close to the answers she wanted about Jared's book, but yet so horribly far away.
"Sally might not have said it about George, but I'm going to say it about you: You are evil," Sarah said with a slight pout.
"Ah, but what kind of writer just tells the readers what he meant?" Jared asked with the same smile on his face. "Ah, here we are. I have not yet tried American pizza, and I think that I would like to."
"At this place?" Sarah asked with a disbelieving look.
"Yes. What's wrong with it?"
"Fine, but just to let you know, this is not the only pizza place in New York," she said. Jared gave her an odd look before she marched forward and opened the door. "It's your funeral."
"…So then the guy looks to me before he says that he had no idea how the chicken got into the castle!" Jared finished with a slight laugh.
"Ohmigod," Sarah said with a wheezing half-laugh. "What did the owner do?"
"He banned the guy from even setting foot on the castle grounds, and cooked the offending chicken up for dinner," Jared told her with a wink. They came to Sarah's apartment, and she dug into her purse for her keys.
"You didn't have to walk me to my door, you know," Sarah said absently. "I don't think that I'm going to be attacked in the 10 or so feet it is from the elevator to my door."
"Yes, but how else am I supposed to give you a proper good-night kiss if I don't walk you to your door, my dear?" Jared asked with a teasing smile.
"You're out of your-" Sarah started, but then Jared pressed his lips to hers, much in the same way that he had two nights before in the elevator. The only difference being that instead of Sarah pushing Jared away, she tilted her head up to accept his kiss better and lightly put her hand on his chest. Jared put his own hand on Sarah's waist, and probably would have pushed her up against the door had Mrs. Kelley not opened her door and stepped out into the hall.
Sarah and Jared pulled apart at once, and looked everywhere but at each other or the elderly woman; both of them were red in the face from having been caught.
"Oh, don't mind me, dears!" Mrs. Kelley said with a slight laugh. "I'm only looking for my cat!"
"Um, you don't have a cat," Sarah reminded her neighbor.
"Oh, that's right. Silly me. I'm old and forgetful. Carry on, then!" She vanished back into her apartment. Sarah awkwardly cleared her throat, and turned her back to Jared to unlock her door.
"Thank you for dinner," she said softly. "Good night." She quickly closed the door.
"Wait, what about my mug?" Jared asked. The door opened a second later and Sarah quickly handed Jared back his mug before she shut the door again.
As he walked down the hall, Jareth ran his nose along the rim of the mug and then looked carefully at the delicate pink lip-print along the rim. "I'm definitely pleased with the progress I'm making with her, but I'm more than a little worried about how she seems to have forgotten her journey through my Labyrinth. I gave Mrs. Kelley that specific book of mine on purpose, knowing that the old woman would likely loan it to Sarah sooner or later." Jareth gave another lingering sniff of the mug just as the elevator came to a stop at the seventh floor.
"Sarah, my precious one, what am I going to do with you?"
Reviews are appreciated. :)