The Measure(58)
When Maura arrived at the school on Sunday night, Chelsea was sitting on the steps of the entrance, languidly smoking a cigarette, sweating in the muggy summer heat that barely relented after sundown. There were still a few minutes before their session started, so Maura took a seat next to her.
Chelsea held out the cigarette as an offering. “You smoke?”
“Just a few times, in college,” Maura said. “Of course, that was pot . . .”
Chelsea laughed before taking another drag.
“You know, if Doc were here now, he’d probably yell at me for not quitting,” she said. “But sometimes it feels like the only good thing about having a short string is that I get to smoke freely again. Whatever’s gonna get me is already coming, whether it’s lung cancer or something else.”
In the earlier sessions, back in April, Maura had stared at Chelsea and wondered about her, the natural orange tints in her hair matching her quite unnatural orange tan. It fascinated Maura that, even after receiving her short string, Chelsea continued to prioritize her biweekly spray tans. But there, on the stoop, watching Chelsea savor the final puffs of her cigarette, Maura actually admired her dedication. So what if she had a short string? She still wanted to live her life. She still wanted to look tan.
“So, did you look again?” Chelsea asked. “At the new website?”
Maura shook her head.
“That was probably the right idea,” Chelsea said. “It’s a lot easier to freak out when it’s so much more specific. At least Hank didn’t have to wake up that morning and think, This could really be it.”
Chelsea dropped the butt of her cigarette onto the ground, smothering its glowing tip under the heel of her wedge sandal, and slowly stood up. “Shall we?”
When the two women walked into the classroom, the rest of the group was already talking.
“He should have told us the truth about his string,” Lea said.
It was the first session after Hank’s funeral.
“That Dr. Singh gave a nice eulogy,” Terrell remarked. “Saying that Hank inspired her to join Doctors Without Borders? I doubt any of my exes would be that kind.”
“Did they find out anything more about the shooter?” Sean asked.
“It sounds like she was aiming for Rollins,” said Ben. “So it probably wasn’t going to be some mass attack.”
“Only one thing’s really for sure,” said Nihal. “Her string is almost up.”
Chelsea groaned audibly. “First, she murders our friend, and now she’s giving all of us a bad rap.”
But it was Anthony who had actually linked the shooting to the woman’s box, Maura thought, painting her motivation as a short-stringer’s fury. Very few details had surfaced about the shooter herself. She was in her early forties, unmarried, no children. No family or friends came forward publicly, neither to defend her nor to express their shock.
But the shooting—like the other acts of violence before it—would undoubtedly feed the unconscious bias simmering in so many brains, Maura was certain of that. The next time somebody met a short-stringer, would they pause, for just a moment? Would they wonder, Can I trust this person? With everything they’re going through? All that pain? All that baggage?
How could they possibly be . . . normal?
Fall
Amie
Some students didn’t return that fall.
A few parents moved their children out of private school, unable to justify the additional expense when a shorter string foretold a future loss of income. Several families fled Manhattan, now acutely aware that life was short and wondering if its quality might improve outside the city. A handful left the country altogether.
In fact, by September, six months after the strings’ first appearance, the Times had collected enough data to reveal that a very small but statistically significant percentage of the American population had departed since the boxes arrived. Many of the emigrants simply crossed into Canada, while some journeyed even farther north to Scandinavia, where the years of good press—ranking among the happiest regions in the world and the most dedicated to promoting equality—seemed to outweigh any fears of the endless winter.
Even long before the strings, Amie herself had toyed with the notion of moving, finding a new home where the everyday aspects of living were just a little less expensive and a little less difficult. But the city always managed to change Amie’s mind, pull her back in. For every matted brown rat that scurried past her feet, there was a neighborhood garden sprouting with color. For every late-night mugging on the news, there was a late-afternoon stroll in the park, where musicians and singers on every corner composed a different score. Some things even the strings couldn’t change.
If only her school were one of them.
Back in August, a week after the shooting at the congressman’s rally, the principal had sent a staff-wide email lamenting the ongoing violence across the country and offering his condolences to anyone who had been adversely affected by the strings’ arrival.
“I understand the compulsion that many teachers must feel to provide guidance for their students during this difficult era in our lives,” the principal had written. “However, given the increasingly incendiary nature of the topic and recent developments in our string measurement abilities, I am advising all teachers to refrain from any in-depth discussion of the strings in their classrooms this coming fall.”