The Measure

Enrollment at Amie’s school has dropped, and recent data indicates that a significant number of Americans have quietly left the country in recent months. Amie thinks of leaving, but she still loves living in New York. Her school, meanwhile, has forbidden teachers from talking to students about the strings. The school’s position is that parents have the right to decide when their children are told about the strings. Soon after this mandate, a teacher is fired for telling her students not to fear having a short string. Although some parents protest the firing, the administration holds firm.

Maura sees a news story about a man who is forging strings and selling them to people who switch other people’s strings as a prank. At her support group, Maura gets frustrated about how short-stringers are always forced to prove themselves. When she gets home that night, Nina can tell she is upset and suggests a vacation. They decide to go to Venice, Italy, because Maura feels a connection to the residents who live, happily and knowingly, in a sinking city.

Javier watches the debate between Anthony Rollins and Wes Johnson. Johnson gives a stirring speech and the audience really responds to him, but Anthony responds by using Jack’s short string to make himself more sympathetic. Javier is disgusted and feels used. He wonders whether Jack knew about his uncle’s plan. Upset, he goes for a run, and as he runs by a chapel, he reflects that he hasn’t been to church in months. He stops and goes inside, sitting near a nun who reminds him of his grandmother. After he returns home, he watches the end of the debate, in which Wes Johnson renews his commitment to the short-string movement.

After the debates, Maura meets Ben for a drink. He tells her the story of Claire opening his box and then breaking up with him. Even though his string is longer, she feels sorry for him, because she has Nina. Together, they look at an article about new “mind-uploading” technologies, an idea that offers hope to some short-stringers. Maura tells Ben about communities that don’t have access to the internet, and how their only point of comparison for string length is each other. She also tells him about her upcoming trip to Venice with Nina.

Anthony’s poll numbers are up, and Wes Johnson’s are down. Very little is known about the shooter, until Anthony’s campaign manager identifies her as the sister of a boy who died of alcohol poisoning at Anthony’s college fraternity. He remembers the boy’s death, and the way their powerful fathers interceded with the college to get it dismissed as an accident. He tells his staff to bury the story and decides not to tell Katherine. He consoles himself that the boy must have been a short-stringer and thus would have died that day regardless.

Ben writes to Amie about a friend who, every year on his birthday, asked himself if he was happy. The trouble, he says, is that we think we deserve to be happy, and so if we’re not, we can’t understand why. This is the core struggle of being a short-stringer. Now there are people who say that short-stringers deserve even less, and who distance themselves from short stringers to avoid feeling bad or facing difficult questions. Then he apologizes for his negativity, explaining that a friend died recently.

Although it’s been a week since Amie got Ben’s letter, she hasn’t replied. She realizes that he is right about the divide between long- and short-stringers. With her silence, she is distancing herself in exactly the way he is talking about. She tells Nina about her correspondence with Ben, how it began, and the trouble she is having now. Nina asks whether they are dating, and they talk about whether she would date, or even marry, a short-stringer. She reflects that, because she doesn’t know the length of her string, she has the same attitude as a long-stringer. She and Nina dance to music in the park and try to forget about everything for a moment.

When Jack doesn’t bring up Anthony’s actions, Javier finally confronts him. Jack is apathetic. He admits frustration but doesn’t see what he can do. They get into their first real argument, with Javier unable to understand how Jack can sit back and do nothing. When Jack leaves, they are still angry at each other.

Amie writes back to Ben, telling him that he is right. She believes that long-stringers are avoiding short-stringers because of societal discomfort with death. Modern society has always sought to render death and the dying invisible, and now that societal habit extends to rendering short-stringers invisible too. She tells him that she looked at her box for the first time in months recently, although she still didn’t open it. She has also thought about what he said about happiness, but thinks he can still be happy, and deserves to be.

Maura and Nina have just landed in Venice. Since the strings, travel has increased, especially to places with spiritual significance. With the owner of a mask shop, they have a conversation about the pleasure of anonymity, and Maura reflects that maybe that is what being a long-stringer is like. She asks if people in Italy looked in their boxes, and the shop owner says that she thinks most did not—that they already know what they need to know about their lives, and understand their priorities.

Since his argument with Jack, Javier has decided to leave early for his army posting and spend the remaining time with his family. Realizing that Javier’s friendship is more important to him than his relationship with his uncle, Jack apologizes for not taking Javier’s concerns seriously. He then gives him a blessing card that his grandfather, Cal, had passed down to him. Javier accepts the apology, but refuses to accept the card. He is frustrated because he has told Jack what he needs from him—to do something about Anthony’s using Javier’s short string to get elected. Jack realizes that Javier is his true family and that he must choose Javier’s side and earn his forgiveness.

Maura has given Ben her keys so he can set up a surprise for Nina while they are gone. When he enters the apartment, however, a woman nearly hits him over the head, thinking he is an intruder. The woman turns out to be Amie. They’ve never met before, though they’ve been carrying on an anonymous correspondence for weeks. He shows her the drawings Maura asked him to make for Nina, and they go out for dinner together. They go on several dates, but Ben knows he must tell her about his short string before they go any further. Over dinner one night, they talk about Nina and Maura’s trip, and when Amie brings up the story of Gertrude from Ben’s letter, he realizes who she is.

Near the end of their time in Italy, Nina and Maura are on a day trip to Verona. They visit the statue of Juliet, and the wall of messages behind her. Touched by the setting, and filled with gratitude for their relationship, Nina proposes, and Maura accepts.

Ben meets his parents at their storage space, to go through things and declutter. He still hasn’t told Amie about his string, nor has he revealed to her that he is the writer of the anonymous letters. He is afraid that once she knows, her feelings for him will change. As they go through family things, Ben finally tells his parents how little time he has left. They instinctively reach out to him, which makes him realize that Claire did not do so.

Jack takes the train to New York to try to distract himself from his argument with Javier. He sees two boys harassing a canvasser for Wes Johnson, and steps in to confront the two boys. Afterwards, a pregnant woman who saw the incident introduces herself as Lea—she is wearing a pin that represents solidarity between short and long strings. She thanks him for doing something, instead of nothing, and Jack finally realizes what Javier was trying to tell him. Exhilarated by taking action, he thinks about what he might do at his next appearance at an Anthony Rollins event.

Ben still hasn’t told Amie the truth, and it feels wrong to continue the correspondence. Realizing that today is the two-month anniversary of Hank’s death, he goes to the spot in the park where he died. On the way, he sees people crowded around a piece of graffiti art featuring Pandora opening her box. When he gets to where Hank was shot, he sees a young woman with pink-tipped hair there, with flowers. She tells him that Hank was an organ donor, and she received his lungs. She hasn’t looked at her string because she just wants to live every day. On his way out of the park, he notices that another artist has added to the Pandora’s box piece, putting the word Hope in one corner of the box.

When Amie gets to her classroom Monday morning, she finds a letter, but this time with her full name on it. Ben tells her about their correspondence, and that he has a short string. He still wants to see her, but after she finishes the letter, she is stunned by all the new information. She reads back through Ben’s letters, remembering the story about Gertrude and the soldier. When she calls the museum that holds the letter he wrote about, they tell her that the soldier died, but Gertrude lived a long life, and never married. Amie needs advice, and calls Nina, but Nina tells her to talk to Ben. She also tells Amie that she and Maura are getting married. Amie asks if she’s sure, and Nina gets angry. Before the strings, she says, life was uncertain and everything was a leap of faith. She accuses Amie of being a coward and a hypocrite about Ben’s string.