Space Romance Bookmark | Joan and Vanessa Love Story | Taylor Jenkins Reid | LGBTQ | Astronaut

The most important things happened in the spaces the official record never saw. For every reader who finished Atmosphere and understood that the space program was the setting and the love story was the point. For every reader who felt Joan and Vanessa's private world as specifically and as completely as they felt the launch sequence — who understood that the two coffee mugs angled toward each other and the open notebook and the record playing in the warm amber room were as extraordinary in their own register as anything that happened in orbit. For every reader who has ever loved someone in a world that did not officially make room for that love and built the room anyway in the margins of the official life and lived there as completely and as honestly as any love has ever been lived. This bookmark is for the private world. The one the official record never saw. The one that was more real than the official record anyway. ✦ ABOUT THIS BOOKMARK A richly illustrated scene of the private world that Joan Goodwin and Vanessa built together in the spaces between the demands of the space program and the demands of the era — not the shuttle, not the launch pad, not Mission Control, but a warm amber room in Houston Texas in the early 1980s where two women were entirely themselves for a stolen hour or a private evening, the room that belongs only to them. The deep warm indigo of a Houston night fills the very top of the composition — softer and warmer than the cold black of orbital space, the Southern night sky above Johnson Space Center visible through a window, the thin pale blue of the atmosphere ribbon barely visible at the top edge, the fragile layer between the official world and the real one present even here even at night even from the ground. Moving through the window into the warm amber of the room — the lamplight the dominant color of the entire composition, incandescent and warm and entirely of the early 1980s, the particular amber that existed before screens replaced it, the light that makes everything in its circle look more important and more true than it did outside the circle. Two coffee mugs on the small table angled toward each other — not side by side but facing slightly inward the way people angle toward the person they love without instruction or intention. Still warm. The evening not yet finished. An open notebook on the table in handwriting that is warm and slightly urgent and not legible but clearly full of something that needed to be said to one specific person. Two pairs of reading glasses — slightly different from each other, the glasses of two different people who were reading in the same room together which is one of the most intimate and most ordinary things two people can do. Books with notes tucked inside them, the evidence of two minds that found each other's company genuinely interesting. A small photograph worn at the edges from being moved carefully from place to place and kept somewhere that mattered. A star map on the wall — not an official NASA chart but a personal one, the sky rendered as something beautiful and private rather than something technical and official. The rainbow prismatic light scatters warm and soft across the table through a glass object on the windowsill catching the ambient light of the Houston night — the color of the truth present in this private room the way it is always present in Taylor Jenkins Reid's world, warm and unhurried and completely there for anyone who is looking, lying across the two mugs and the open notebook and the photograph and everything that matters most. The evening star is visible through the window — Venus, warm gold against the Houston night, steady and bright, the star that belongs to every private hour and every private love. The most important things happened here. In this room. In the amber light. Between the two mugs and the open notebook and the rainbow on the table. The official record never saw any of it. It was all entirely real. ✦ BOOKMARK DETAILS — Size: 2.15 inches wide by 6.75 inches tall — Printed on premium card stock — Full color illustration front with matte finish — Arrives in a kraft envelope with a protective sleeve — Ready to use in your copy of Atmosphere the moment it arrives ✦ PERFECT FOR — Every reader who finished Atmosphere and felt Joan and Vanessa's love story specifically and completely and needed a bookmark that honored it — LGBTQ+ readers and allies who recognized in Joan and Vanessa's private world something true about loving someone in a world that does not officially make room for it — Taylor Jenkins Reid devotees who love her for the love stories above everything else — Readers who responded more to the private world of Atmosphere than to the space program — the two mugs, the open notebook, the lamplight, the record playing — Anyone who has ever built a private world in the margins of the official one and known it was more real than the official version — Pride month gifts — this is one of the most moving LGBTQ+ love stories in recent fiction and this bookmark honors the love story specifically — Book club gifts — Atmosphere generates extraordinary conversations about love and visibility and what it costs to live honestly in an era that asks you not to — Gifts for the reader who recommended Atmosphere and was completely right about it — Pairing beautifully with our Atmosphere space program bookmark — the public world and the private world, the mission and the love story, both bookmarks together telling the complete story — Treating yourself — Joan and Vanessa built their world in the margins of the official one and so can you ✦ THE TWO MUGS Two coffee mugs on the table angled toward each other. Not side by side — angled inward, slightly, the way people angle toward the person they love without being told to. This is the whole love story in two coffee mugs. Taylor Jenkins Reid could do this in her sleep. She does not do it in her sleep. She does it with complete intention and complete understanding of what two mugs angled toward each other means and what it costs to have that and what it is worth. The mugs are in this bookmark. They are still warm. The evening is not yet finished. ✦ THE RAINBOW ON THE TABLE The rainbow prismatic light is in this bookmark — scattered warm and soft across the table through a glass object on the windowsill catching the ambient Houston night light. It is not a flag. It is not a symbol. It is light doing what light does when it moves through glass at the right angle in a warm room where two people are entirely present to each other. It is warm. It falls across everything that matters. It was always there. It is completely there for anyone who is looking. ✦ THE OFFICIAL RECORD The official record of what happened in the early 1980s space program does not contain Joan and Vanessa. It contains mission parameters and launch sequences and orbital mechanics and the names of the crew of STS-LR9. The official record is incomplete. The most important things happened in the amber room with the two mugs and the open notebook and the star map on the wall and the rainbow on the table and the evening star through the window. This bookmark is the record that the official record refused to keep. ✦ ALSO IN OUR SHOP This bookmark pairs beautifully with our Atmosphere space program bookmark — the mission and the love story, the public world and the private one, the atmosphere from orbit and the atmosphere from within. Both bookmarks together tell the complete story of Joan Goodwin more fully than either one alone. This bookmark also pairs with our Truth Collection honoring The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo — Taylor Jenkins Reid's two great love stories that lived in the margins of the official record and refused to stay there. See our shop for the full Taylor Jenkins Reid collection and our complete LGBTQ+ literary collection. ✦ SHIPPING Ships within 3 to 5 business days. Arrives in a kraft envelope so your bookmark comes to you simply and beautifully — ready to use immediately. Think of it as a letter from the amber room. The evening star is out. The mugs are still warm. ✦ ABOUT OUR SHOP Every bookmark in our shop is designed and produced professionally by us — made with care in our own studio and printed on premium materials we stand behind completely. We are a small passionate operation and we treat every order like it matters because it does. We are committed to five star service on every single order — from the moment you click to the moment your bookmark arrives at your door flat and perfect and ready to live inside your favorite book. If anything is ever less than exactly right please reach out and we will make it right immediately. We respond to every message promptly and we mean it — real people, real responses, no automated runaround. Thank you for supporting a small independent bookmark maker. It means everything to us and we do not take it for granted. We hope this bookmark finds exactly the right book and exactly the right reader. Michelle and Julie The Luna and Loom 📚