Ian Sales - All That Outer Space Allows

She works right through lunch, forgetting the salad she made the day before which is sitting in the refrigerator, neglecting the cooling cup of coffee beside the typewriter, and even forgetting that she is improperly dressed for the task, not wearing her slacks and favourite shirt but a short-sleeved shift dress in pink, orange, gold and green paisley.

It is mid-afternoon by the time she types the words:

—pulls the sheet of paper from the platten and sets it face-down on the pile beside the typewriter. She turns over the manuscript and carefully lines up each page until the corners are square.

Sitting back, she feels an ache lay itself across her shoulders like a yoke. A deep sense of satisfaction fills her, a heartfelt gratitude that the past year has not taken from her the ability to write science fiction. She knows the story will need going over with a sharp eye, but she is happy with this first draft.

Her coffee is too cold to drink, so she slips her shoes onto her stockinged feet, and heads to the kitchen to brew herself a celebratory cup.

And if mention of Ginny’s feet in nylons seems an odd detail to include, there’s a line in The Astronaut Wives Club , “Even when she wore her ‘at home’ slacks and went barefoot, she always put on her makeup”, about Martha Chaffee, wife of Roger, a homecoming queen at Purdue and described by Koppel as “drop-dead gorgeous”. It’s for good reason Koppel repeatedly likens Martha to Twiggy—those bare feet! only hippies go around in bare feet! Martha was plainly a bit of a free spirit, a tad “individual”.

Unlike Martha, Ginny has given up her “at home” clothes, she is trying hard not to be “individual”. Because she and Walden are childless, the other wives feel no compunction to call ahead when dropping by. Ginny has had the lecture once, and she knows Walden’s feelings on the matter; let them see her doing as she’s told, she still has “Virginia G. Parker” and not one of them knows about her.

The following morning, she goes over the story once again, but it needs only minor changes and takes her no more than forty minutes to type out a final draft incorporating them. She writes a quick cover letter to Evelyn at Galaxy , puts it and the typescript into a large envelope and, on her way to the beauty parlour, drops it into a mailbox.

That Saturday night, Ginny and Walden are watching television, he has a beer, she’s skimming through an issue of Good Housekeeping but the contents are boring her, when the telephone rings. Ginny puts down her magazine gratefully, goes to answer the phone and it’s Evelyn from Galaxy .

This story, Evelyn says, I like it, I like it a lot, but I think you need to fix the ending.

Ginny is proud of ‘The Spaceships Men Don’t See’, she thinks it’s the best story she’s ever written, and she doesn’t like hearing that it’s not perfect. But she also knows that Evelyn knows her stuff, she’s an excellent editor and has been doing this for over a decade. Besides, if changes are needed to sell the story, Ginny is happy to make changes.

What do you mean? she asks.

Evelyn elaborates, You tell the story from the wife’s perspective, and you drop plenty of hints she’s the solution, but you don’t actually explain the consequences of what happens. You need a twist, Ginny; readers need to know there’s a reason it’s her story and not his.

“The reason for how the story ends…” Ginny realises not only is Evelyn right about the story but her words describe Ginny’s own life here in Texas equally well. The Apollo flight schedule has been postponed while the Apollo 1 fire is investigated and the Block II command modules brought up to scratch. Though it has been six months, a pall continues to hang over Houston, adding a bite of melancholy to the ever-present pollution. Impatience too—the astronauts are not so foolish to rush into anything which may jeopardise their lives, but they’re keen to start flying again. In Ginny’s case, the lack of flights has meant the astronaut wives have been getting on with their own lives: avoiding the press, church work, community theatre, substitute teaching, charitable activities and so on. Ginny has none of these, she has only Walden and her science fiction—and the house being built, arguing with the contractor, only for Walden to apologise to him on his next visit home, angering her at his disloyalty and prompting yet another fight…

So Suzanne, says Ginny, referring to the heroine of her story, you think Suzanne needs to figure out why things happen the way they do?

No, that won’t work, you’ve made it clear she’s no scientist, Evelyn points out. But there’s an obvious consequence to what happens in your story and you need to spell that out. Perhaps you should put Suzanne’s husband closer to the mystery, make him an engineer or something?

But, Ginny thinks, Walden is a pilot, not an engineer; he’s not involved in the design of the Apollo spacecraft, although he does need to understand how their every part functions. While his inability to see so many things which are clear to Ginny provided the inspiration for the story, perhaps she should do as Evelyn suggests and give her protagonist’s husband more of an investment in the success of the invisibility project. Yes, she likes that idea, and as she works through the ramifications of that change, the perfect ending suddenly comes to her, one that turns everything on its head—

I think I have it, she tells Evelyn.

She describes her idea, without going into too much detail as she knows the narrative will shake itself out as she puts the words down on the page, and right now the new direction of ‘The Spaceships Men Don’t See’ is little more than an unmarked path leading to “The End”.

Evelyn laughs. She likes the idea, there’s an irony there she says her readers will recognise. Do that, she tells Ginny, write it like that and send it me. As soon as you can. I want that story for my magazine.

Ginny puts the telephone down. She’s happy she’s sold a story, but it is bittersweet as she thought the original version good enough. No, now she thinks about it, she realises Evelyn is right—this new version is much, much better.

She returns to the lounge.

Who was that, hon? asks Walden, not looking away from the television.

Just one of the other wives, Ginny replies.

Once a month, the wives of the engineers and administrators gathered at the social club for coffee and conversation. Being confined for months on end to the spaceyard, due to its remoteness, was no fun. They all went a little stir-crazy after a time. The men had their work… but what did the women have?

So the wives put on their best dresses, congregated in a back-room at the social club, and gossiped. They oohed and ahhed over the latest fashions in their electronic magazines, and they pretended their coffees didn’t contain something a little extra.

Suzanne was looking forward to the social, just as she did every month—although perhaps more this time. Her husband, a project engineer, had been especially distant during the past few weeks. Each evening, he came home from work, and she took his portable computer and his coat from him, and put them away. He said nothing, not even a thank you, just went into his study and closed the door. And the next day, the level of liquid in the whiskey bottle he kept in there had dropped a couple of inches. His work wasn’t going well. Suzanne didn’t need to be an engineerto see that.

The first person Suzanne spotted when she entered the room at the social club was Kristin, whose husband was one of the spaceyard’s senior administrators. Suzanne was immediately taken with Kristin’s dress in rich purple, complimented her on it, and was praised in turn for her own pink, orange, gold and green paisley dress. Kristin had also dyed her hair a silvery blonde. “It’s very sophisticated, don’t you think, darling,” she told Suzanne, patting her abundant curls with one hand. “My man loves it, he says I look like a tri-dee star or something.”