Friday, November 9th, 1984

     The next morning, the library was closed and the windows shuttered up. The land it sat on was deemed too unstable to be safe for anyone to go in there. Fortunately, my experts said the land surrounding the library was safe, so no other businesses had to close. That afternoon, Deputy Sanchez had a short funeral and was laid to rest. Things had managed to work out the way I wanted, although not the way I’d intended. It wasn’t until this morning when the curse began to play tailor and do its stitching.

     “I’ve got to go.” Graham sat on the edge of the bed and stretched each well-toned leg into his pants.

     “I imagine you’ll have a lot more work to do today.” I stretched in bed, not used to him being up so fast.

     “I’ll have the same amount of work that I always do.”

     “I just meant now that you don’t have a deputy.”

     “I’ve never had a deputy.”

     The general consensus had been that it was actually Deputy Sanchez who was trying to steal the ballots. At least, that was what I’d told everyone. I could understand Graham’s feeling of betrayal.

     “It was horrible, what he was trying to do, but you can’t just dismiss a man like Deputy Sanchez after all the good he did for this town.”

     “Who is Deputy Sanchez?”

     “He was your deputy.” I laughed because I couldn’t believe this. I assumed he must have been in shock still. “You found him in the elevator of the library two nights ago? He’d handcuffed me to a chair? He liked cats?”

     “Regina, I don’t know if this is your idea of a joke, but I’ve never had a deputy. Leroy and I found you in the library after the earthquake. You were alone and you weren’t handcuffed.”

     “Really?!” I marched around the bed and held out my wrists. “How do you explain these bruises?”

     “Those are from my handcuffs.” He winked at me before dashing out the window.

     The day grew even more ridiculous when I had lunch with Kathryn. She came to my office, because I didn’t want to go out and risk seeing Graham. I was still mad at him for pretending like I’d made his deputy up. I didn’t tell that to Kathryn, though. She’s not fully aware of what my relationship is with the sheriff. Or if she is, she’s never brought it up.

     “It’s a shame what happened to Deputy Sanchez.” I said before taking a bite of my sandwich.

     “Who?”

     “Sheriff Graham’s Deputy.”

     “Sheriff Graham hasn’t had a deputy for as long as anyone can remember.” She spoke as though this was an absolute truth.

     “But I was found in handcuffs. Who else could they have belonged to? Sheriff Graham had his on him. They belonged to the man who went down the elevator and came back up burned to death.”

     “Oh, Regina, that’s awful!” Kathryn put her sandwich down. “Don’t say things like that. No one was burned alive. Sheriff Graham discovered you in the library before you could be hurt.”

     “We buried Deputy Sanchez yesterday!” Maybe I was just supposed to go along with this? I couldn’t though. “You were at the funeral! You brought mashed potatoes to the gathering at Granny’s afterward!”

     Kathryn put a reassuring hand over mine. “You’re still in shock. That’s what it is. You need to go home and rest.”

     But I couldn’t just go home and take a nap. Work needs to get done, whether I’m making stuff up in my head or not. And I knew I was not, but the longer I went through the day I realized just how much the curse had corrected itself. Now that the library was shuttered, no one spoke a word about the election. Not one person cared about who was president now. I even asked one of my assistants who won the election. His response was, “I don’t know. I don’t like to vote.” I must have given him a puzzled look, because he added, “But I voted for you, Madam Mayor!”

     Before coming home, I decided to stop at Granny’s for dinner and a glass of wine. I sat at the counter and remembered the riddle about the dress. Not everything had been corrected. In a booth behind me, Marco and Dr. Hopper ate dinner and talked like old friends. Not every hole in the fabric needed to be stitched over, it seemed. Marco and Archie weren’t a threat, but a man being killed by a dragon was. It was working in my favor this time, so I decided to go with it. I don’t know what I’ll do yet if it ever works against my favor.

     But not everyone had forgotten the deputy. Someone in the diner was saying his name.

     I turned and there was Leroy. Judging by his loud speech and delayed movements, he’d had more than enough to drink. He continued to try and get his audience to remember Deputy Sanchez, but everyone around him was either ignoring him or telling him to be quiet. He’d been in the literature aisle more than anyone. Maybe that gave him enough clarity to remember things that others couldn’t? Whatever it was, I’d had enough of the deputy to last me a lifetime. I paid my money and got up to leave, but Leroy saw me and stopped me as I was walking past him. He almost fell off his stool before staggering over to me.

     “Come on, Madam Mayor! You were there. You know who I’m talking about, right? No one believes me, but you do, right? He handcuffed you to the chair.” Leroy reached out for one of my wrists that still had bruises on them, but I pulled it away.

     “Don’t touch me! You need to go home, sir. The sheriff doesn’t have time to arrest everyone for public drunkenness.” I walked out, leaving him surrounded by men and women laughing at him.