Closet Spaceship Part 10

Gwen was one of the more elusive crew members. I tried to catch her several times, but she has good peripheral vision and saw me coming. By the time I got there, she was nowhere to be seen.

I could respect that, so I tried not to let it bother me. After a while, I gave up ... so that’s when I stumbled upon her, of course.

She was in the rec room reading a book, tucked into a corner of the couch there. The book must have been good because I was able to get within a few meters of her before she looked up with an expression of dismay. Maybe fear. Or maybe dislike.

I suppose I should have built up some thick skin by now, given how some of the other crew members had reacted to me, but it stings a bit to be on the receiving end of a look like that.

“Okay, okay,” I said, raising both hands. “I’ll leave you alone. I don’t want to interrupt someone who’s reading a book anyway.”

Okay, I’ll admit it: I did check to see if it was my novel. It wasn’t.

She scowled at me for a few seconds, so I took a few steps back.

“As long as you don’t ask me that damned question,” she said.

I stopped backing up. “What question?”

She rolled her eyes. “The one about what’s it like to be a woman in a man’s world.”

I laughed. “Man’s world? What does that even mean?”

She actually smiled. “They don’t ask you that?”

“No,” I said, “but I’m not exactly famous, so they don’t really ask me anything.”

“So I’ll ask you,” she said, putting down her book.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about myself.”

That’s right: I did it. I walked right into her trap. Not a clue.

“Exactly!” she said. “Now you know how we feel!”

Ouch. How do you respond to something like that?

First you say, “Okay, you got me.”

Then you let her smile triumphantly at you.

Then you say, “Excuse me while I go fly the ship.”

She laughed. “Good luck!”

“Well, someone has to do it while you’re asking me all these questions and writing up the results,” I said.

“Don’t oversimplify,” Gwen said. “I’ll fly the ship, you’ll write about somebody else.”

“Who?” I asked. “You think what your captain and crew do should go unnoticed?”

“Well, no, but … you don’t have to include me, though.”

“Okay,” I said. “When you come down to pick up the crew from the middle of a firefight, I’ll just say some pilot did it. Or maybe I’ll say it was Nick.”

“Don’t you dare! Nick? I’d never hear the end of it!”

“Okay, it’s settled, then,” I said.

She shook her head. “Just remember that I have a minor role, okay?”

“Try to be as boring as you can.”

She nodded as she picked up her book. “Done.”

We’ll see how long she can live up to that.