Watson Parker

“ Even if you'd let me do it, I wouldn't marry him. I couldn't live with myself. He doesn't know, well, about me. He wouldn't have loved me if I'd told him. He's never seen me; all he's in love with is a voice that understands how to keep him sane. I wouldn't hold him to that promise, Miss Graham, if he was the last chance to marry that I'd ever have."
Miss Graham was silent for a few moments, then turned to the door.
"You've figured out how to let him know that you won't marry him?"
"I'll tell him when he comes down."
"And you think that just telling him will do the trick, Suzy?" ”

“ For Suzy loved her men, all seven of them. To know them well, to listen time and again to their recorded conversations, to pick out points that were worth repeating, to avoid the subjects that depressed them, to say what would bring them home in love with her was a pleasure to her, and she worked hard at the job. All alone, late into the night, Suzy would sit in her little office, listening to her records, and planning the next day's battle for the sanity of her men.
"Now Al," she'd muse, "he'll want to know how that recipe came out, the one with the mushrooms. Poor guy, he does like to eat. ”

“ You know they made me promise that before I took the job."
"Promise to be a talking floozy to fifty men in space, to hold 'em all at arm's length, let 'em love you, then leave 'em in the cold when they came back down to earth. They made you promise to keep us stringing along, until we got back home safe and sound, then turn us loose with our love for you burning a hole in our hearts! They made you promise a thing like that, Suzy?
"You can't handle the merchandise, Whit. When you come down, then we'll talk over things together." ”