Unification - Jeri Taylor [65]
When Will dismissed the group, Troi made her way toward Naylot. “Ensign,” she said in a friendly way, “I’d love to have tea with you sometime soon.”
The younger woman looked taken aback for a brief moment, but then returned the smile. “I’d like that,” she said, and what Troi picked up from her now, overwhelmingly, was relief. “Why not now?”
“… and there’s never a time when I leave anything undone until the next day. If there’s work on my desk, I do it before I go to my quarters.”
Troi nodded and sipped at her tea. Gretchen Naylot was pouring herself out to Troi unabashedly; what Troi was hearing was a tale of a bright, motivated young woman who had set her sights on Starfleet and who never looked back in her single-minded drive to get there. Only once she had, she couldn’t turn herself off.
Ensign Naylor was inflicting a lot of self-made stress on herself in her need to be the best and the brightest. Troi wondered if her family, when she was growing up, ever loved and praised her just because she was herself—or only because she was an exceptional student. Troi felt certain it was the latter.
Gretchen’s feeling of self-worth was all bound up in her achievements. If she sensed that she was faltering at all, if she felt rejected, as she had felt by Will Riker when he wouldn’t include her on an away team, it was an assault on her entire identity. That could be troublesome, for no one got through life without quite a few failures, rejections, and missteps. No one of them could be given such importance that it rocked the core of one’s very being.
Troi sensed that this was basically a stable, intelligent woman whose focus was just a little obsessive. She needed something to draw her out of her preoccupation with success.
“Ensign, have you considered a hobby?” Troi was surprised when Gretchen burst out laughing, until the young woman explained that Commander Riker had suggested the very same thing. This made Troi smile.
“He was talking about playing something called a stand-up bass. Have you ever heard of it?” Troi smiled again. Will was always trying to get people to play musical instruments. He loved music so much he believed everyone else would get the same pleasure from it he did. “Yes, I have. It’s an ancient instrument.”
“I just don’t think that’s anything that would hold my interestY “Can you think of something that would?”
To Naylot’s credit, she honestly struggled with the question. Troi had no doubt that she was searching within herself, trying to find an elusive something that might pull her out of her single-minded concern with achievement.
But eventually she shrugged. “Not really.” She looked down at her hands for a moment and then asked, “What’s wrong with my just wanting to do a really good job as a security officer?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” replied Troi. “But if thaVs all there is… then, ironically, you might not be as good a security officer as someone who has outside interests.”
The young ensign nodded. She understood; she wasn’t resistant. She simply didn’t know of anything else that interested her except work.
“When you were a little girl,” Troi suggested, “was there anything you enjoyed doing? Anything besides studying?”
Gretchen sat quietly, searching her mind, genuinely trying to recollect her childhood. “I was so lucky. My family gave me everything, sacrificed for me, let me have the time I needed to study. I owe them so much.”
Troi studied Gretchen intently. Her heart went out to this resolute young woman, beset with overwhelming feelings of responsibility. Her whole family had given their lives to see her succeed—how could she let them down? She carried this burden with her every minute; she had to be the best, or it would invalidate all