Wednesday, January 18th, 1984

     I’ve only taken Ruby’s aerobics class twice and I’ve certainly seen enough of Mary Margaret, but as mayor there are certain obligations. Today was Career Day at Storybrooke Elementary. I had to go to Miss Blanchard’s classroom with all of the other leading examples of the community and speak to children who would be too young to hold a job in this world for the rest of their cursed lives.

     Children ran around the classroom while the adults stood out of their way in a corner. Miss Blanchard was unphased by her students’ lack of decorum. She projected her voice and asked the children to quiet down and sit at their desks for their guests. She then offered an arm and gestured to all of us to take the seats placed for us along the wall. I chose a chair between Graham and Granny. Soreness spread through my thighs as a reminder that I still had a ways to go before I’d be in shape again. It took more time for me to sit down than it did for the children to quiet.

     “Perhaps we should take it easy for a while?” Graham spoke low so as not to distract from Miss Blanchard talking to her students.

     “It’s not that. I’m taking this aerobics class with Kathryn to help me lose weight.” I spoke low too. Granny was looking at Miss Blanchard, but I knew she was listening to us. That woman has better investigating skills than Sidney, who was the first to go up before the class.

     “You don’t need to lose any weight. I like you just the way you are.”

     “Sheriff, you would like me even if I shaved off all of my hair and painted myself blue.”

     “What shade of blue?”

     Granny cleared her throat and shifted in her seat away from me, confirming my suspicions. Sidney finished explaining his job and took some questions about the paper from the students before returning to his seat. Graham was next. All the children were enthralled by him. As soon as he was done he had to go back to work. The rest of us sat through Dr. Hopper, Dr. Whale (who pointed out to the students that he was a real doctor, with a look to Archie) and then Granny. Finally it was my turn.

     The children didn’t seem to be as interested in what it was like to be mayor as they were about the position of sheriff, but that was fine.  Miss Blanchard then opened it up to questions.

     “How did you become mayor?” A little boy asked.

     I wasn’t prepared for this. I don’t know why. I thought back to my first day here. It was in Sidney’s paper. Granny told me too, I think.

     “I was elected.” I said, rather proud of myself for remembering.

     “Like the president?”

     I must have looked like I didn’t know what a president was, because Miss Blanchard stepped in.

     “We’ve been learning about the presidents, since this is an election year.”

     I knew this was an election year and I knew what a president was. I’ve been learning things in our library and I’ve slightly paid attention to the news commercials in between “Hibiscus Hollow” episodes. I didn’t need Miss Blanchard to interrupt me like that. What I hadn’t thought about until then was these people thought they’d be voting in the next election. I entertained the idea of telling the children that we don’t vote in Storybrooke, but as far as everyone knew, most of them had voted for me. Maybe.

     “Yes, just like the president.” I smiled at the bored little boy. “Except there are so many more people voting all over the country. The president might be announced before all the votes are counted. It isn’t as important to vote in the bigger elections as it is the smaller, more local ones.”

     “That’s not true!” A man with a dark beard shouted from the back. I recognized him as one of Snow White’s dwarves, but I didn’t know his name here. His brown shirt and trousers suggested he was on the janitorial staff here. “Election day is the one day when everyone has a say. No one’s voice is more important than someone else’s!”

     “Leroy’s right, children.” Miss Blanchard had the nerve to do damage control in front of me. She took one look at me and shrank. “But so is Mayor Mills—sort of! It is a much larger election, but everyone’s vote counts. It just takes longer to count everyone’s vote!” She laughed at her own play on words, but one look from me assured her it wasn’t funny.

     I didn’t pay any attention to the rest of Career Day. As Leroy spoke about how important cleaning toilets was, all I could think about was how important voting was to him. If it was important to him, how many others would think it was important? What would happen if those people found out that no one outside of Storybrooke would come to collect their ballots? This is something I’ll have to prepare for. It should be easy.

Friday, January 13th, 1984

     Every part of my body hurts.

     Last night, I donned what’s called a leotard in purple, along with blue tights and a soft blue headband. Kathryn and I went to the event room at Granny’s Bed and Breakfast along with several other women of the town. All the other ladies were squished into their leotards in many bright colors. Some of them had weights wrapped around their wrists and ankles. Most had brought towels. Kathryn insisted I bring one, though at the time I couldn’t imagine why. Kathryn and I joked about how seriously some of these women were taking this, even though I didn’t know what to expect yet. Kathryn described it as moving in rhythm to music. It honestly didn’t sound like aerobics would help me lose weight, but Kathryn was excited and I knew it made her feel good to get me out of the house.

     Ruby’s aerobics instructor outfit verses Ruby’s everyday outfit had less fur and more spandex but was otherwise the same. She stood at the head of the room and waited for everyone to settle down. When that didn’t happen, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled as loud as she could. All the women quieted and looked ahead.

     “Thanks, guys!” Our instructor said. “I see some new faces tonight. When we really get into the workout this might seem really hard. Don’t feel bad if you can’t keep up tonight, but keep moving. It’ll get easier the more often you come to class. I’ll come around when I can to help you get the moves right, but if I haven’t come over to you and you think you’re stuck, just watch Mary Margaret!”

     Ruby pointed to the side of the room and there she was. Clad in her forest green leotard and white tights, Miss Blanchard blushed and waved to all the admiring faces.

     “Thanks, Ruby, but everyone should watch you.” Mary Margaret tried to turn the attention back to Ruby, but everyone just beamed at her, even Katherine. “I’m a student, just like the rest of us.”

     “But you’re so good. You’re better than me. You should be the teacher.” Ruby’s praise made all the women laugh. I was unable to keep my eyes from rolling up.

     Eventually the laughter calmed down and the class began. Ruby turned on some music from her cassette player. Music blared from the machine and she encouraged us to step to the music. I tried to forget about Mary Margaret and focus on the program, which became more fun. It started out with a simple step touch and then progressed into grapevines. All the women took three steps to the side and clapped then three steps to the other side and clapped. This only went on for a few minutes before the lunges began.

     “That’s not quite right.” Ruby was making her rounds as she’d promised. She didn’t seem to approve of the way I kept one foot firmly planted while I threw the other one forward and bent at the knee. “You need to go lower.” She put her hands on my hips and pushed me further down as my knee bent. I let out a very audible groan when the pain shot through my thighs. “Good!” Ruby took this as a good sign. Back home, I would have taken it as grounds for execution. “Feel the burn, Mayor! Keep doing it just like that.”

     As soon as Ruby moved on to her other students, I went back lunging in the less painful way. But then my eyes moved over to Mary Margaret. She was lunging so low she was almost doing the splits. My hatred for her grew, and I told myself I could do that, even though today my body is telling me that I clearly could not. I did as best as I could to keep up with her from that point on.

     Ruby returned to the front of the class and taught us what I can only describe as some sort of dance routine. At best, it reminded me of something local villagers would have performed for Snow, her father and I when we traveled. There were more of those grapevines, followed by kicks and arm thrusts and even jumping jacks. By this point in the class, I wasn’t the only one having a difficult time keeping up. At least two thirds of the women were sweating and staggering their way through the routine. Had this been an actual dance we had to perform for a ceremony, we would have brought shame to our village.

     After the dance routine, there was a brief pause for us to dry ourselves off and grab a drink of water. I actually thought we were done and started to grab my things and leave. Kathryn stopped me and informed me there was still floor work to do.

     Floor work is a special kind of torture. We all got down on the floor on our towels, because I certainly wouldn’t want to lie directly on that carpet.  We got onto one side, propped ourselves on an elbow and stretched out our legs. The music slowed down. Ruby had us raise our top leg, lower it and repeat that forever. Then we did it some more, only with that foot flexed. Then we did it even more, but with our knee bent. All through this, Ruby reminded us to breathe, which proved to be necessary. I think I’d forgotten about my air intake while I was willingly destroying my leg.

     We finally stopped. I thought our teacher was being merciful until she had us turn over and work out the other leg.

     Turning around forced me to watch Mary Margaret exercise. She hadn’t even broken a sweat. Her hair was perfect. She was raising and flexing as though this was the easiest thing she had ever done. I endured this mocking of my misery for as long as Ruby made me. Finally we’d reached what was ironically called the “cool down”. It involved slow stretching which made my skin burn up.

     At long last, we were done. The class actually applauded Ruby, who clapped right back at them. I couldn’t wait to leave, but Kathryn was hanging around chatting with Mary Margaret and Ruby. I clutched my sweaty towel and joined them.

     “Thank you so much for coming, Mayor!” Ruby was ever the hostess. “It’ll get easier for you the more you do it.”

     “That wasn’t so hard.” No one believed me. “It certainly wasn’t hard for you, was it, dear?”

     Mary Margaret avoided my gaze, mumbled something about school in the morning and left. Kathryn and I took that as our cue to leave also. I don’t know if I was crazy from exhaustion or angry with Miss Blanchard, but I promised Kathryn I would go to class with her on a regular basis. Today, my body doesn’t think that’s a good idea, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve faced worse things in my life, and I WILL beat Mary Margaret at aerobics!