A Story
CG Fewston


I had not seen Julie—let’s call her by her pet name, Jewels—in over eleven years until I explored the Museum of Lost Art on Austen Avenue on a Thursday that had not expected snow.
 
The museum on the third floor was bright and smelled of Lysol as I ambled around the artifacts of old love letters that had seen better days than the ones beneath the glass. When I left the oil section where young couples reclined beneath poplars on grassy slopes or on skiffs out in Venetian-like canals immortalized with detailed brush strokes, a side room filled with photographs for sale caught my attention and I wandered in thinking nothing more than to kill some time before my mahjong tournament for charity that would begin later that evening.
 
By the fifth aisle I recognized the two young subjects in most of the photographs on display: myself and Jewels. And these photographs were the same ones I had taken nearly twelve years ago when we had been lovers by the lake. In one, Jewels held her hand over part of her face, showing one seductive eye. In another, she held her hands behind her back as she bent toward the camera with her long locks falling straight while her freckles and her smirk made it almost impossible not to recognize her. In yet another photograph Jewels at the age of seventeen knelt in her mother’s kitchen beside a fawn that took timid steps to counter the soft strokes over its spotted back. I had not thought of that particular morning in at least seven years or more, but I recalled clearly how I had, at the age of twenty-two, woke in the spare bedroom one Saturday morning to go in search for coffee and a kiss, only to find Snow White in the flesh, and from that day onward I felt guilty at taking the virginity of someone so innocent and pure—but in my defense, if there should be one, we had been young and too absorbed in love to consider the consequences of our actions.
 
The top row of the shelf held many more of my memories with Jewel in photographic form, and the more I compared how she looked with how old I felt the more it made me want to cry. I kept thinking of how I drifted in and out of people’s lives for my art and no real connections had ever been made and how easy it was to forget and move on to the next poem, story, novel to write in hopes of finding a moment’s peace. But nothing could have been more peaceful than standing quite still in the hallway watching the young girl I loved petting a baby deer in the morning light.
 
At first I had believed I was dreaming, and the same feeling of uncertainty crossed my mind as I considered the face of my old sweetheart in each one of the photographs.
 
Finally, I concluded that Jewels must’ve donated the photographs to the museum after we broke up, but for the life of me I couldn’t understand why. Granted I had achieved some sort of success later on as a novelist but by and large no fame of mine warranted such a display of lost affection as the one now presented to me in a museum selling old photographs that happened to include me and Jewels. Of all the women—somewhere above the count of 220—Jewels was the one I had not wanted to let go, but deep down the Dream of becoming a novelist whispered an echo in my soul telling me of how I had to make a choice: stay or go; it was that simple but the consequences seemed far more devastating at the time.
 
These kinds of thoughts whirled around in my head as I turned left at the end of the aisle and found the woman of my thoughts in the flesh. Jewels had aged but the spark in her eyes was as sharp as ever.
 
Jewels placed her hair—just as long as it had always been—behind her ears and seemed incapable of blinking. Her cheeks were fuller and rounder than in her youth but still held the freckles I had so often kissed beside the lake and inside the cabin where we made love all summer: the same summer I spent in the lake cabin writing my first book; the same summer that saw the World Trade Towers stand in New York for the last time.
 
‘What’re you doing here?’ Jewels stepped closer and crossed her arms. ‘Come to see for yourself?’
 
‘I thought of asking you the same thing.’
 
I took a step closer to better judge the pain in her eyes. ‘What is all this?’
 
‘I don’t have to answer to you.’ Jewels spun on her heels and strolled out of the museum shop. She looked back once, and when she did her hair flipped across her shoulder and snapped back above the zenith of her buttocks suspended in a new pair of blue jeans, much to the delight of the college boy that had let her go all those years ago. And of course I chased after her.
 
Outside the snow fell heavily, and Jewels and I made a momentary peace of all the lost years that divided us in many ways and subdivided our lives in many more.
 
‘I read you still like to drink Hazelnut coffee,’ she said. ‘Is that true?’
           
‘I prefer it to most other coffees, yes.’
 
‘Then you’ll love the Fitzgerald. Or would you prefer to go to someplace else?’
 
‘That would be fine,’ I said.
           
Jewels waited until we were stopped at the crosswalk, her hair glittered with flakes of snow, to add, ‘You know, every time I smell Hazelnut coffee I still think of you.’
 
 ‘I know,’ I said.
           
‘You do?’
           
‘Every time I woke early to watch the sunrise, I’d stand on the porch of the cabin I bought in Vermont some years ago from the money of my first book, and I’d drink my coffee and many times a doe and her fawn would ease out of the treeline and the cold to find a bit of warmth…’
           
The signal to walk turned and we headed to the Fitzgerald in silence.
 
When you have not seen someone in a decade or more, that person’s voice becomes lost. No matter how hard you try the voice and all its familiar tones and irregularities are dropped into a void while only the person’s image at times begins to fade.
 
I thought I had forgotten all about Jewels and our time together but now that she sat across from me having a latte her voice sounded as though it had never vanished from my memories, and though she sounded and looked like a woman entering her thirties and much older than my shaggy memory could recall, I felt happy, and it was this happiness alone that kept me from crying in front of a dear, old friend that I had abandoned on my long, solitary path to becoming a novelist. And these were the kinds of sacrifices a young writer kept to himself, because to him choosing between two loves never made much sense, despite meaning the world to him.
 
‘So tell me about yourself,’ I said. ‘I want to know what you’ve been up to.’ I had wanted to say, ‘What have you been up to for all these years,’ or ‘What’ve you been up to since we last saw each other,’ but neither one sounded appropriate and I didn’t want to be reminded of the separation and the long years that included, the long years that were quickly dissolving into a time that felt no longer than two or three days.
 
‘I have two children now,’ Jewels said. She pulled her sweater down and this revealed how much the petite breasts had grown in her womanhood. ‘One is four; the other, six.’
 
‘You must be proud,’ I said. ‘Motherhood seems to agree with you.’ To be honest I didn’t know what to say and the more I spoke the more I sounded like the fool. Was I sitting across a stranger in her thirties who was a mother of two or was I sitting across the young girl who had experienced the first tastes of pleasure in my arms? Either way I did not feel as old as I had when I first entered the museum earlier that day.
 
‘I’ve read all your books,’ she said. In her expression I did not register the usual level of excitement or awe found in one of my fans. ‘You never wrote about me. Why?’
  
I hadn’t expected this kind of question from a reader, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. I had been her first lover. I had meant the world to her. And over time she must’ve understood how my love for writing had caused her to lose…to lose so much more than she ever thought she would lose.
 
I sipped the Hazelnut coffee and ran my thumb along the rim and the handle. ‘I did,’ I said. ‘I just never published any of it.’
 
‘Oh. I see.’ Jewels looked down into her latte, the answer obviously surprising her, and then she picked up the cup with both her hands. Before taking a sip, she looked up at me over the rim of the cup. ‘Do you think you’ll let me read any of it?’
 
For many women after Jewels, I could not give myself fully to the love I knew they wanted, and I had felt bad about that. In fact, I was often incapable of telling women of what was going on inside my head and heart because I knew they didn’t want to hear any of it. Each woman had wanted to live her own fantasy and for as long as I could I had tried to help each one do just that; but to me that was all it would ever be: fantasy.
 
 
‘Most of what I’ve written about you is still at my other apartment in Beijing, but I do have one story about you back at my place here in town. That is, if you’re interested.’
 
‘I am.’
 
I had expected Jewels to say more, or to ask more questions, but she said nothing more. She sipped her latte with two hands and often watched cars and people passing out in the snow. At times she would politely nod to let me know she was still listening to the stories I told her about living abroad in China and travelling to such places like Bali, Guam, Borneo, Hong Kong and Singapore. She said nothing when I asked for the bill and paid for it. She told me nothing more about her life since she was seventeen, and in the cab ride up town she said nothing when she placed my hand in hers and rested them both in her lap. She nodded to what I said and when she blinked, I saw how her eyes could still shimmer and it reminded me of how happy she had been all those years ago.
 
After a time I stopped talking of what it was like to go on book tours and to see the world while flight attendants and waitresses in fancy, upscale restaurants knew nothing of my pen name and livelihood. Anonymity had its perks, but I figured Jewels cared very little to hear any more of it. The snow continued to fall ever so gently while we spent a somber cab ride fiddling our fingertips together.
 
My apartment in the States back then was on the twenty-first floor of a building that overlooked the park and the river that ferried boats to and from the harbor. I punched the security code into the e-screen and the door’s locks snapped open. Once inside, I helped Jewels remover her coat and shoes and set some water to boil for tea.
 
When I came out of the kitchen, I found Jewels standing by the bay windows with a stillness about her that I couldn’t quite place.
 
‘You’ve done well for yourself,’ she said. ‘I guess I’m starting to understand that I would’ve held you back.’
 
‘Don’t ever think that,’ I said, and I wrapped my arms around her. We both watched the snow settle over the city until we heard the kettle sing.
 
I remember having Earl Grey and she had wanted English Breakfast, and after her second cup she finally said,
 
‘So where’s my story?’
 
I put on some piano music but it took me another fifteen minutes or so to find the story I’d told her I had written about us staying together in the cabin by the lake that one summer I told you about, but when I found the typed pages and handed them to her, she looked me in the eyes and said,
 
‘What took you so long?’
 
Once again she had caught me off guard and I didn’t know what to say.
 
‘I’m only kidding,’ she added, and then I left her alone to read the story.
 
That story was the most honest story I had ever written, and for me it was also the most beautiful. I don’t know about most writers but for me it’s damn difficult to write such an honest story.
 
While Jewels quietly read the story, I waited over by the windows thinking of that summer I had spent with her and all the years that had followed without her, and very little made any sense to me. I’m sure at the time when we had been together or when I had been alone some of it must’ve made sense. But standing by that window listening to the piano music while she read that story, I couldn’t think of one thing that made sense in the last eleven years.
 
I’m not sure how long it took her to read the story, but when she came to stand beside me the snow had picked up and it was falling twice as hard as it had done outside the Fitzgerald. Even the sunlight outside had started to fade and dim, leaving the living room in long, heavy shadows. Jewels had been quiet for most of the afternoon, but when she lay her head on my shoulder and placed a hand on my chest where my heart should’ve been, she said to me with timidity in her voice,
 
‘I had no idea.’
 
It was then I lifted her chin with two of my fingers so we could kiss one another and remember what it was like to be young and happy.
 
When we eased our bodies down into my bed, I was reminded of our first time together. Dusk stretched itself out over the river and the park, and we held each other close much the same way we had done as new lovers. Her body had grown thicker in the arms and thighs, and her belly held faint scars from the C-sections. Her pubic hairs had not changed and were still long and straight as they had been the first time I had seen them—the first time she had let any man besides her doctor see them.
 
When I entered her and began making love, she did not scream out from the pain of her first experience but let out a moan of an experienced woman who welcomed the man to go deeper. At times she grabbed my back to adjust the position or to find the right rhythm, and this too was new and unexpected. The memories from our experiences together merged with our much older bodies and I sensed that she was losing herself in the erotic moments of the past and the present.
 
Afterwards, I rolled off her and Jewels turned on her side to rest her head on my chest. We lay like that for a long time listening to one another breathe. At some point in the living room the stereo started playing ‘Ballade Pour Adeline’ and we both listened to that song until we became cold and had to pull the covers over us. The next song that came on the stereo was ‘Triste Coeur’ and we listened while watching the snow fall outside. Our hands explored one another’s bodies and that was when I found the peaceful moment I’d been looking for my whole life. Above the piano, I could hear her breathing, and as she ran the backs of her fingers down my chest and stomach I relaxed and must’ve fallen asleep.
 
 
I do remember thinking, before my eyes closed, how there were moments I wished I could stay in for all time and be at peace with my life, and how that afternoon was one of those moments.
 
I awoke later that evening to an empty bed and a silent apartment. Out in the city the snow made the lights yellow. 

About the Author:
​CG Fewston is an American novelist who is a member of AWP, a member of Americans for the Arts, and a professional member and advocate of the PEN American Center, advocating for the freedom of expression around the world.  A Time to Love in Tehran, his fourth book, won GOLD for Literary Classics’ 2015 best book in the category under “Special Interest” for “Gender Specific – Female Audience.”  He was a finalist in the 2015 Chatelaine Awards for Romantic Fiction, and a Finalist in the 2015 Mystery & Mayhem Novel Writing Contest.  You can read more about CG Fewston and his writing here, here, and here. Find him on Facebook here.

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