Joan D. Vinge (born Joan Carol Dennison) is an American science fiction author. She is known for such works as her Hugo Award-winning novel The Snow Queen and its sequels, her series about the telepath named Cat, and her Heaven's Chronicles books.
Where only women are allowed to crew starships, a cyborg barman spends a few days every couple of decades with a woman from a starship. A really neat example of interstellar romance over the expanse of time, where one person ages slowly because they're part machine and one person ages slowly due to relativistic travel, though the time they spend apart obviously differs for the two of them. Fairly positive I've actually read this one a long time ago.