Chapter three
"I'm not going anywhere! You seriously giving up on us that easily?" Eric exclaimed, rage etched across his face.
"That easily! You gave up on us six months ago when you jumped into bed with her." Sarah went to the bedroom and pulled out the first large bag she could find in her wardrobe. Eric followed her in, towering over her menacingly. Then, suddenly, he changed tactics and dropped to the floor clinging onto her legs.
"Please Sarah." She moved out of his grip, placing the bag on the bed she began sifting through her wardrobe for clothes she'd need. "I am so so so sorry. Do you think I'd propose to you if it wasn't you I wanted?" Eric began pulling out the clothes she had placed into the bag. They had been neat, but now she just had to stuff them in.
"Stop being so childish Eric." Sarah screamed, thinking about Toby and how he never acted up as bad as this. "How do you expect me to be? I've just found out you've been cheating on me. Do you really think I'd go oh ok, I forgive you; lets still get married No Eric, I have a little more self respect than that."
"But you're writing us off completely Sarah. And we're leaving for New York tomorrow. You're prepared to throw that away too?" He sat next to her bag on the bed.
"No, you're going to give me my ticket. Give me some time and I'll think about what I want." Sarah threw a pair of shoes and a battered pair of trainers in the bag.
"You're not moving into that apartment. I'm paying for that!" Eric grabbed her arm roughly.
"Did I say anything about the apartment? No, I asked for my ticket. After all, I paid for them." Sarah shook off his grip.
"No. You're not leaving until we sort this out and you promise you'll marry me."
"You're kidding right! Right now I can't even look at you let alone contemplate spending the rest of my life with you." Sarah chocked on her word. It was true, she couldn't look at him. She'd cheated on him in a dream; what he'd done was unforgivable.
"Well you're not going to New York tomorrow." Before she could do anything, Eric had gone to his computer desk in the living room, pulled open the top desk draw, and mindlessly tore the tickets into pieces.
"I have to be there for the audition-"
"Bye bye Sarah's dream." Eric hissed blowing the tattered remains of the tickets in her face. "You're shattered my dream, I'll destroy yours."
"What was your dream Eric? Ti have your perfect wife; blissfully unaware that you're sleeping with people behind her back?" Sarah had stunned him into silence. With one lat poignant stare she left him and returned to the bedroom to zip up the bag and sling the strap over her shoulder. She grabbed the box she had only just brought into their apartment and returned to the living room. "I'll get Rachel to come pick up the rest of my stuff."
"That where you're going to be?"
"No, she just has a key Eric." Sarah sighed, not wanting to reveal to him where she was going. "Goodbye"
She sat in her car staring for at least five minutes. Why did she have to go and brag to Jareth? Ok, so what had she managed to ruin and loose for herself in the space of about thirteen hours? Her boyfriend, her flight to New York and the prospect of a career making job along with it; her brother has begun going off the rails and to top it all off, she felt like she was loosing her sanity
Where was she to go? She couldn't go back to her Dad's, he had enough to deal with and would more than likely make matters worse. She couldn't go to Rachel's as that's where Eric was now expecting her to go. There wasn't anyone else. There were a few people she knew, but no one she trusted well enough to go knocking on their door and ask for a place to stay.
Hoggle! She thought brightly. Ok, a bit stupid going into the lion's den but maybe she could somehow manage to get to see Jareth and get him to reverse whatever it was that he'd done to her. While she was at it, she'd demand to know why he didn't answer her plea and then tell him that she wanted nothing more to do with him. Ever.
"Ok, Hoggle-" She reached into the box for her mirror. "-I need-" Her heart sank as she saw that that mirror was broken, the pieces where still in the bottom of the box, shattered over the rest of her treasured possessions. "-you." She heard her owb voice. She sounded so defeated. "Jareth, I'm warning you; there will be hell to pay. STOP RUINING MY LIFE." She slumped over the steering wheel and banged her head in frustration. "Rachel's it is then, and by the end of the night I'll either have a one way ticket to New York or a cordial invite to come and kick that tightly bound arse of yours." She didn't know if he could hear her, but she liked to think he could. She started the engine and headed towards Rachel's.
Sarah had known Rachel since their first year in college together. They had both been on the same course, they loved the same music and films and Sarah trusted the energetic blonde so much that she had almost told her about Jareth. She had in a way, she'd told Rachael that he was an older man who had adored Sarah, but it couldn't last because they were from two worlds. It wasn't as if him being the Goblin King to another land was integral to the story.
Story? Was it just that? Sarah thought as she got stuck at a red light. Was what happened to her years ago real? Where her feelings for him real? No, they had to be real, if she didn't have real feelings for him he wouldn't have been able to enter her dreams. Although, from her dire situation she now found herself in, she rather wish she hated him instead.
She drove as fast as she could the second the lights changed back. She was five minutes away from Rachel's apartment. What was her plan of action? It was six pm; she'd ring the airport and get the first flight out to New York tomorrow. Failing that she would phone the theatre company and warn them of her situation and see if she could postpone her audition. Finally failing that she'd go back to Eric, kill him, chop him into little pieces and take them in a doggy bag to Jareth and stuff his pale pasty with it until he choked.
"Good plan Sarah." She congratulated herself as they pulled into Rachel's street.
"Sarah-" Rachel questioned as she opened the door, dressed in her pyjamas for what seemed to be a lazy night on the couch.
"I need a place to stay and I need to use your phone; is that cool?" Sarah asked stepping inside, her hair dripping wet from the rain.
"Of course, go sit down. What the hell has happened? I thought you were packing tonight?" Rachel led Sarah to the couch in the next room, leaving briefly and returning with a towel for Sarah. It was true, they'd had her leaving do last week because her and Eric were going to spend the night packing stuff ready to take on the flight and the rest to be shipped once she had won the audition.
"Eric's been cheating on me and had a hissy fit and destroyed the tickets to New York because I wouldn't instantaneously forgive him." Sarah decided the shortened version was better.
"Who?" Rachel sat down beside her after getting the portable phone from its stand.
"Who'd you think? Miss Perfect." Sarah snapped. "Miss-stick-thin yet ample in the right places and oh so adorably blonde- no offence." She had noticed Rachel's eyes flicker at the insult of being blonde. "It's just I can't help not being blonde; and that was his preference."
"Yes, au natural you're not blonde, but there's always bleach." Rachael offered.
"I don't change myself for any man. I lost weight for him and where did that get me; not a lot I can tell you. It wasn't as if I needed to loose any weight either, I was happy the way I was." She sighed. "Besides, he told me I wouldn't suit being blonde. I couldn't win with him." Rachel scoffed at that.
"Show me a guy you can win with?"
"Jareth." Sarah muttered longingly before she could stop herself. Luckily Rachel didn't quite catch her and assumed that Sarah was agreeing with her.
"Right well I'll go get us a nice bottle of wine and you phone who you got to phone hun." Rachel handed her the phone and headed to the kitchen.
Sarah rang the airline first. No luck, they were fully booked until after the weekend because some English rock star was playing in New York and it was his only American date so everyone was flocking to see him. Even telling the woman that she knew for a fact that two seats would be available didn't help.
"Thanks anyway." Sarah terminated the call with a violent stab of the button. That blonde bandit rock star must be in cahoots with Jareth. Maybe that was why he was so huge?
"How's it going?" Rachel asked placing a chilled glass of wine in front of Sarah.
"It's not, there's a huge gig on in Times Square on Saturday so there are no free tickets until Monday at noon, and the audition is at nine." Sarah hit herself with a pillow.
"That sucks Sarah," Rachel offered Sarah a piece of cake which she gratefully took. A fleeting thought ran through her mind about driving. But with the games that Jareth seemed to be playing it wasn't worth the risk.
"I'll have to ring them up and see what they have to say." Sarah began dialling. They didn't like Sarah's excuses much when she said she wouldn't be in New York until Noon. She was then reminded that she wasn't the only one up for the audition and she wasn't anything special.
"Babe?" Rachel enquired when Sarah had said goodbye and hung up.
"It's not fair!" Sarah screamed. "I had that part. Eric's friend said all I had to do was show up and the part would be mine."
"And there lies your problem." Rachel pointed out.
"He wouldn't be that spiteful." Sarah pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin upon them.
"Wouldn't he? He turned your plane tickets into confetti didn't he?" Rachel informed a stunned and traumatised Sarah. "Right we'll watch the ER night that's starting-"
"Why aren't you out? I thought you were on the quest for a man?" The thought never even crossed her mind that her friend might not have been in.
"The only man I'm interested in right now is Doctor Doug Ross of County General Hospital Chicago. The real men can wait for a rainy day."
"In case you haven't noticed-"
"I know, but you know what I mean. Tel you what though, someone must be pumping a lot of negative energy out."
"Don't start that again, people don't control the weather." Sarah scoffed.
"You ever noticed that when you're down and sad it starts to rain!" Rachel raised an eyebrow.
"No; I tend to be down and sad because it's raining. I'm just going to pop to my car. There's something I need to be doing while you drool over Doctor Doug. You got any strong glue?"
Sarah returned a few minutes later with the box containing the broken mirror and it's pieces.
"Did all your trouble start when you broke that thing? Because you're in for seven years of it." Rachel had turned on the tv and placed a pot of glue on the table.
"Ha! No, but if I fix it, I may get some of my luck back." She sat down on the floor, the mirror frame placed flat on the coffee table and Sarah began to paste the glue onto the backing.
"You need any help?" Rachel asked, her eyes briefly moving from the screen.
"No, if you neglect Doug he'll be cheating on you quicker than you can say stat." Sarah smiled not wanting her friends help; this was something she had to to alone.
After three episodes and four glasses of wine later Sarah was getting frustrated. It was the worst jigsaw puzzle she'd ever had to do and nothing had ever mattered so much to her before. Was it Hoggle or Jareth she was wanting to see more? She sat back and sucked her finger, she'd cut it really badly on the last piece she'd placed down on the drying glue.
"Why didn't you just go and buy a new mirror- what's so special about it?" Rachel asked as the programme went to a break.
"It's the staff entrance to Narnia." Sarah replied, she then laughed inwardly, the idea that ninety percent of all truths are made in jest was never more true.
"I see, quite an important mirror then. Bit foolish to break it." Rachel laughed, "Mind you, at least there's always the wardrobe."
"It's out of order." Sarah mumbled referring to her botched plea to Jareth. She sighed and returned to the mirror. There was one piece left to put in. She looked in the box, it wasn't there. "Oh god!"
"Sarah?" Rachel asked.
"The last piece isn't here." Sarah tipped the box upside down, then stood up to see if it had been on her leg. "It must be in the car." Sarah went towards the door.
"Can't it wait until morning?"
"No it really can't" Sarah's fleeting body replied.
Using the cars inbuilt light as her only source, she bent down on her hands and knees to look for the pieces of glass that was the size of a fingernail. It wasn't there, and if it was; there was no way she'd find it in this light.
"She'd have to admit defeat and as Jareth had knocked down her house of cards she'd have to begin building again. Only this time they would be built on stronger foundations; her growing hatred for the Goblin King.
"Oh Hoggle, if only you knew how much I needed you," Sarah wept softly.
"I do. I just hope you appreciate me sitting out here for half an hour freezing my butt off." A voice behind her replied and a potato shaped head appeared in the cars mirror.