The measure, p.27
The Measure, page 27
For Nina, their relationship felt like enough. Their engagement rings were platinum proof that Nina could look beyond the strings and love Maura for the woman she was, not the time she’d been given. The family they were building together was Nina’s top priority. And, of course, that meant everything to Maura. But sometimes she just needed more. She needed to look beyond the small circumference of their lives, needed the rest of the world to see her as Nina did. As someone worth loving. As an equal.
“God, I wish I could take just one day off,” Maura said, “but I can’t. For my whole life, I’ve had to live every day making sure I don’t seem too angry or threatening or undeserving, because that would make Black people look bad, and making sure I don’t seem too sensitive or stupid or meek, because that would make women look bad, and now I can never seem too unstable or emotional or vengeful, because that would make short-stringers look bad. There are no breaks!” She let out a full, shaking breath. “And you know how much I’ve been searching for something, some way to feel like what I’m doing actually matters. Like I’m using my time for something good.”
Nina nodded slowly, absorbing Maura’s words. “You should go,” she finally said, her voice sincere. “I can take care of everything on this end.”
“Are you sure?” Maura asked.
“Yes. And I promise, next time I’ll be there with you.”
After they parked near the National Mall, Maura and her friends joined the crowd of nearly twenty thousand people spread across the base of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial, spilling over to the nearby lawns, framed by branches now emptied of their rust-colored leaves. A large group at the center was cheering and chanting under a seven-foot banner reading “All Strings, Long and Short.”
Half a dozen news teams covered the event, perhaps because of the rumors that Anthony Rollins’s defector nephew might attend. But even with the added attention—and even with the groundswell of this new Strung Together movement online—Maura still wasn’t sure that it would be enough to prevent Rollins from winning the nomination that summer. Anytime she saw the news of another shooting, or the wreckage of a major car crash, Maura found herself praying that a short-stringer wasn’t at fault. The rest of her support group seemed convinced that the sands had already shifted. Every day that the hashtag trended, every public figure who expressed support, every news show that interviewed the student from South Africa, was proof, to her fellow group mates, that their lives could only improve. But Maura knew better than to blindly trust, or to risk growing complacent. She knew that things could always get worse, unless enough people kept on fighting.
When Maura returned to her apartment after a long day at the rally, she closed the door behind her as quietly as possible and stepped through to the dark living room, passing by the triptych of Ben’s sketches on the wall, like postcards from her life. Nina had adored the images, she nearly cried at the sight, despite the fact that Maura’s surprise had been upstaged by her proposal.
When Maura turned toward the kitchen, where Nina had left a single light shining, she spotted a piece of paper taped to the fridge, marked with Nina’s writing:
Hope the rally went well. There’s a cake sample inside. Trust me, you’ll love it.
I’m proud of you. Xo
Maura didn’t regret her choice. She was glad she went to D.C. But she was thankful that she could always return here, to her home, and to Nina, who at least accepted what Maura had to do, if she couldn’t always understand.
Maura peered inside the fridge, where a slice of chocolate cake sat in a clear plastic carton, tempting her with the smooth curves of its frosting. When she lifted it up, she noticed another piece of paper under the box.
You were right, we don’t need an elaborate party. We just need each other. And I don’t want to wait any longer. If we’re going to argue again, I’d much rather fight with my wife.
Will you marry me on Monday at City Hall?
Maura shut the door, shocked and silently elated. She crept into the bedroom, carefully unclasping a small gold pin with two intertwined strings from the top corner of her sweater, slipping off her clothes and dropping them into the hamper. Then she gingerly peeled back the sheets covering her side of the mattress and filled the empty space in bed, already warmed by the sleeping woman who, in just two days’ time now, would become Maura’s wife.
Maura knew that her parents might have preferred a church, or perhaps the lawn of a countryside estate, but a lot of what she had done in her life wasn’t exactly what her parents would have wanted. After flitting from job to job, from girlfriend to girlfriend, at least she was finally staying put, getting herself properly hitched, and to a woman her parents genuinely liked. (“Nina seems like she has a good head on her shoulders,” her father had said after they’d met.)
And Maura was actually quite pleased to have the ceremony at City Hall. The occasion didn’t feel quite as overbearing without the long walk down the aisle or kneeling in front of the altar. And Maura never saw herself as the type to have a conventional wedding anyway.
The civil ceremonies were performed inside the Marriage Bureau, a large gray edifice surrounded by an array of municipal buildings in the middle of downtown Manhattan. Immigration services, the IRS, and the district attorney were all housed within a one-block radius of the New York Marriage Bureau, but its closest neighbor was the Health Department, where the city’s birth and death certificates were filed. Maura found this oddly fitting. The Health Department recorded the beginnings and endings of life, while just next door, couples vowed to support each other through everything in between.
Inside, Maura thought the Marriage Bureau felt like a fancier DMV, with long couches lining one wall, a row of computers against the other, and large electronic screens mounted overhead, where couples looked to see their assigned number displayed, signaling that it was their turn to be wed in the private room in back. The 24-hour waiting period between obtaining a marriage license and performing the marriage ceremony may be waived with proof of an expiring string, read a poster near the entrance.
Maura could tell that Nina had been slightly distressed by the kitschy kiosk at the front, a small boutique hawking touristy “NYC” paraphernalia alongside last-minute wedding staples like flowers, veils, even rings. Perhaps, for a fleeting moment, Nina had even regretted her uncharacteristic impulsiveness that had brought them both here today.
But everywhere they turned, they saw love. Men in tuxedoes and women in gowns, young twenty-somethings in jeans and baseball caps, a handful of tulle-draped toddlers running amok. A few other couples had come alone, like Maura and Nina had, but most arrived with an entourage of guests, their cameras filling the hall with flashes.
Nina looked simple and elegant in cream-colored lace, while Maura had opted for a light gold dress with a bit more shimmer.
“I think you might be the most beautiful bride in here,” Nina said to her, touching her cheek.
After their number appeared on-screen, Maura and Nina took their places before the officiant, a balding man with a mustache and glasses, practically swallowed whole by his baggy brown suit, who approached each and every ceremony with the benevolent energy of a man who performed only one of them per day, instead of dozens. The couple in line behind them—a woman in a red floral dress with a crown of flowers in her hair and a man in a matching red tie—had graciously agreed to bear witness, standing side by side, their hands linked together by two intertwined pinkies.
Maura had never expected this moment. Of course, before the strings, she had sometimes suspected that a proposal might be coming—in an incident of particular weakness, she had even peeked among the pristinely folded clothes in Nina’s dresser—but everything had changed in March. Since then, even in their most intimate moments, even when swept up among the romance of Italy’s cobbled alleys and quiet fountains, Maura never thought Nina would propose. Not after the strings.
And Maura never would have been the one to ask, to put Nina in that position. She didn’t feel any shame at the thought of simply living with Nina, no titles. Maura didn’t need to be one half of a marriage to feel whole. But once Nina had posed the question, once the possibility was suddenly real and standing before her in the shape of the woman who felt like home, Maura thought that maybe it would be nice to be married, to have something that felt solid and lasting in her otherwise upended life. Maybe, despite everything her string had stolen, this was one thing she could still have.
After the officiant pronounced Maura Hill and Nina Wilson newlyweds, the couple returned to the main gallery and exited onto a peaceful street. Nina clasped Maura’s hand as they headed to meet their families and a few close friends at a restaurant just down the block—a near-miraculous feat that Nina had spent the weekend pulling together.
In a back room lit by candles, Nina’s and Maura’s parents sat together with Amie, while a few of Nina’s favorite coworkers, some of Maura’s friends from college, a couple of local relatives, and the members of Maura’s support group gathered around three other tables.
Even before the strings, Maura had always believed there was something just a little bit crazy about marriage, committing the rest of your life to someone before you had even lived that much of it yourself. And surely, some might find her marriage to Nina even harder to understand. Yet all of the people in this restaurant, these family and friends, had canceled their plans at the last moment, rearranged their lives to be here tonight. To show their support for this crazy act. To fill the room with love.
After the meal was served, Nina walked over to a corner where Maura had been chatting with a cousin. “There’s one more thing,” she said.
Maura smiled, eyeing her with faux-suspicion, and as the violins began to play over the speakers, Maura suddenly realized the four tables had been arranged with a small opening in the center. This was Nina’s plan all along.
Still surprised, Maura allowed herself to be pulled out of her chair and into Nina’s arms, while the voice of Nat King Cole filled the air around them.
“I can’t believe you did this,” Maura whispered against Nina’s cheek. “All of it.”
“If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”
And the pair swayed back and forth together on the tiny makeshift dance floor, holding each other close.
That’s why, darling, it’s incredible
That someone so unforgettable
Thinks that I am unforgettable, too.
Amie
Everyone around Amie stood up and headed for the patch of dance floor, leaving Amie alone at her table, admiring her sister and Maura as they weaved through the clusters of guests. She couldn’t believe she had almost missed this. Thankfully, she had arrived at Nina’s door just in time, overflowing with regret and apology. Only a few days later, Nina had called her to say that the formal wedding had been scrapped, replaced by an intimate dinner after a ceremony at City Hall.
Amie tried to focus her eyes on the dancers and stop staring at Ben, who was seated across the room, with the other members of his and Maura’s support group. Amie had been too nervous to approach him earlier, and she assumed that Ben was understandably waiting on her. She was the one who had left his confession unanswered, after all.
She had already planned what she was going to say to him, some polite speech about wanting to stay friends, but as she watched Ben laughing alongside a pregnant brunette in a modest pink dress and a strawberry blonde with a spray tan, Amie felt inexplicably upset that he would be laughing with any woman who wasn’t her. She felt her face growing flush and her heartbeat quicken. She was being completely ridiculous, she thought. She was a twenty-nine-year-old woman, for god’s sake, not some jealous preteen.
Amie thought that she had made up her mind about Ben, that it would be safer to never act on her feelings.
But maybe she was wrong.
The song was still playing, she still had a chance. But would Ben even be willing to speak to her?
She drew a breath and walked over to his table.
“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting,” Amie said shyly. “But I thought I’d see if you’d like to dance.”
There was a brief pause before Ben smiled, and the relief warmed her body like sunlight.
“Of course,” he said.
They moved together toward the center of the room, and Ben took the lead, his arm lightly encircling her waist.
It was Ben who ventured first.
“I was beginning to think you never wanted to talk to me again.” He narrowed his eyes and raised his brow.
He was teasing her, Amie realized. A second relief.
“It wasn’t you, it . . . I . . . Nina and I were going through a rough patch,” Amie explained. “And it’s honestly all I could think about these past few weeks.”
“Oh,” Ben said. He looked genuinely concerned. “Is everything okay?”
“It is now.”
“So that just leaves you and me. And my letter.”
“How did you figure it out?” Amie asked.
“Well, there were all these little hints, about you and where you lived and where you worked, and finally it all clicked when you mentioned that letter about Gertrude,” he said. “Although I suppose I did take a bit of a risk that I had gotten it all wrong and the real ‘A’ would have been quite confused.”
Amie laughed, and she could feel Ben’s arm tightening around her. She stepped closer toward him in response.
“I’m sorry I’m not much of a dancer,” he said.
“Oh please, all of my recent dance experiences have been chaperoning students who seem to forget that their teachers are watching.”
“So you have to forcibly separate the poor hormonal kids?”
“Sometimes, yes,” she admitted, “but not if they look like that . . .” Amie nodded toward Nina and Maura, twirling along the edge of the crowd.
“They look so happy,” Ben said.
“And completely oblivious to anyone else.”
Ben shrugged. “That’s how it’s supposed to be, right?”
He was looking at Amie with such kindness, such sincerity, that she needed to break away from his gaze for just a moment. She leaned her body in even closer, until her chin hovered above his shoulder, and her eyes landed safely on the back wall, while the music drifted around them.
And Amie thought of all the times that she had wondered about the person on the other side of her letters, and how remarkable it was that she was actually with him now, feeling his warmth and breathing in his cologne. Amie felt her body relax, at ease with Ben, as if they had danced together many times before.
Amie closed her eyes and tried to imagine the future, the way she always had, with the lawyer and the poet and the handful of other men who had held her in their arms over the years.
She pictured herself with Ben in Central Park, sitting on a bench near the lake, and painting the walls of a bare apartment with rollers. She saw herself in white, holding his hands before her, and then smiling in a hospital bed, both of them kissing the bundle in her arms.
She could see each scene quite clearly; they weren’t blurred like some of her previous daydreams. She could see it, and she could almost feel it. And something about it felt right.
Unlike her visions of the men before, there were no caricatures of Ben’s flaws. The problem holding Amie back wasn’t a blemish in Ben’s character, the fault not in himself but in his stars.
Amie blinked, and she saw herself standing in the grass, with two small children dressed in black, and then weeping inside a cramped kitchen, alone this time, while pots and pans and lunch boxes littered the counter before her.
Amie must have read his last letter ten times by now. She knew what Ben wanted, and that he wanted it soon. And he deserved to have it all.
Of course, he had never specifically said that he wanted any of it with her, but she was the one he had kissed only a few weeks before, the one dancing with him now, and suddenly it all felt like too much, too fast. She felt dizzy and overwhelmed.
“I’m sorry, I just have to get some air,” she said, releasing Ben from her arms and escaping quickly toward the back door.
Outside, Amie sat down on the curb, rubbing her arms against the evening chill. Most of the buildings along the street housed government offices that were already closed, so everything around her was quiet.
She felt guilty and ashamed for running out on Ben, but she didn’t know if she could go back inside, if the beautiful visions she had seen could ever erase the dark ones that followed.
An older couple walked past Amie, on the opposite side of the street, holding hands and whispering to each other, conspiring against the world. She thought for a second that they looked familiar, but in the dusky light it was hard to tell.
Of course, Amie wanted what this couple had, what her parents had, what Nina and Maura had.
“When you told me about the wedding, what I should have said is that you’re strong,” Amie had cried to her sister, just a few days prior, pleading for her forgiveness. “You are so strong, Nina. And so is Maura. You’ve chosen love over everything else, and I admire you for that. And I only hope that you can let me back into your life, so I can be there for you both. Because I know this will be hard. But I also know that it’s right.”
Amie wanted to be strong, too. She didn’t want to be a coward, or selfish, or a hypocrite, all those jagged words that Nina had flung at her. She didn’t want to be one of the people whom Ben had written about, forcing short-stringers into the margins, making them feel unlovable. The people who had driven thousands to the streets in protest.
If only it were as simple as her sister made it seem: Take a chance on someone. See where it goes. What do you have to lose?
Everything, Amie thought.
How did Nina do it?
And more than that, how did Ben and Maura and all the other short-stringers do it? How did they find the strength every day?
