INTERLUDE FIVE
“I
don’t give a damn about my reputation…
I
never said I wanted to improve my station”
– Joan Jett
Despite what most people thought of dabo girls—and
former dabo
girls—Leeta wasn’t stupid.
Granted, one didn’t find many aspiring
scholars in their ranks, since the job didn’t exactly serve as a springboard
for higher intellectual pursuits. Still, it was good, honest work … or, at
least, honest work.
Well … anyway, it was work. After all, keeping a man’s mind on you enough to keep the boss happy,
and his hands off you enough to keep you happy, took a knack—not to mention a
lot of effort. It didn’t really
qualify as a long-term vocation, either, considering that your “career,” if you
could call it that, was based less on your talents than your … assets.
Still, if you actually took a job, you gave it your best
effort. So Leeta had been taught, and so she’d always
tried to live.
Besides, at the time, she’d not precisely
been overwhelmed with choices. In the weeks following the first Cardassian
withdrawal, Leeta had desperately needed the money,
and had been down to her last slips of latinum when
Quark had offered her a spot working the tables. She’d been about to refuse it
as beneath her dignity, and given him a good piece of her mind, to boot—when
her stomach, with an audible rumble, had taken the opportunity to remind her that
she hadn’t eaten in three days.
To Quark’s Ferengi
ears, it must have sounded thunderous.
For an instant—and only for an instant—it had seemed as if his expression had
softened. Then, before Leeta could be certain she’d
even seen it, he’d recovered and snapped, “It’s 1030
now. Get something to eat at the bar, and then go sleep on the cot in my
office. You’ll work the night shift, starting at 1700 hours, ’til closing.”
She’d been astonished at the little
marsh-skimmer’s largesse.
“Th–thank you.”
Then, for the first time since his
preliminary leer, he’d given her a more comprehensive once over; and she’d
realized that rather than philanthropy, he’d been motivated by profit
potential, lust or both.
“Oh, you’ll thank me later, Leema …”
“Leeta!”
He’d rolled his eyes.
“Whatever.”
He’d already moved on, in his mind at least, to the next of those countless and
thankless tasks a tavern owner handles daily.
“By the way,” he’d then thrown back
over his retreating shoulder, “don’t worry about the … how do the hu-mans say it? … ‘bed and
breakfast.’
“It’s coming
out of your pay.”
Leeta had thought
him joking—right up until payday, when she’d been charged not only for what
he’d mentioned, but the cost of laundering his sheets, as well.
Still, the job had not been without its
rewards … its victories.
In two hours, she’d made Quark more
money in tips than he’d seen in two days
from any of his other ‘talent.’
In two weeks, she’d displaced Aluria as the dabo girl, that one
to whom other employees looked for support when dealing with Ferengi—even, eventually, Quark himself.
In two months, she’d begun laying
preliminary plans and groundwork for the eventual unionization of her
co-workers, right under Quark’s supposedly discerning lobes.
In two years, along with the 37
proposals (and innumerable propositions), she’d received three offers, each
more lucrative than the last, to start her own business—the first in
competition with Quark, the second on Bajor itself. Nevertheless, she’d quietly
rejected those two, and stayed. For a while, she herself hadn’t been entirely
certain why. Both the opportunities she’d rejected would have made her, if not
necessarily wealthy, then at least quite comfortable. Yet, she’d considered
neither very seriously.
As for the third, well, it would have
taken her away from Rom; and while she’d admitted every intention of getting on that transport to Earth with Louis
Zimmerman, Leeta also knew with a lover’s hindsight
that she’d have been on the next one back.
She had wanted nothing from the man
who’d become her husband—nothing, that is, but his love. Perhaps the Prophets
had seen that, and rewarded her … ‘purity,’ such as it was, along with her
steadfastness: Two years later, their nothing had, in a single moment, been
transmuted into everything.
Leeta’s little frog
was now a prince … and while, in all the ways that mattered, he still remained her little frog, their lily pad
had become a latinum plateau.
People had once craved her favors; now,
they curried her favor. She had once
held her tongue; now she held court. It was all a little much for a small-town
girl from Kendra Province, and Leeta had at first wondered
if she were up to the task of being the Grand Nagus’
lady in a new age—one where women were advisors as well as adornments.
She’d remained determined to be a good
wife, though; and she’d understood that, suddenly, this particular wife had needed to know a lot more than just oo-mox and the
precisely preferred consistency of pre-chewed tube grubs. So Leeta had listened and studied, determined to become an
economist worthy of sitting at Rom’s side not simply because
she lay there every night, but because she actually had something of genuine
importance to contribute. It wasn’t easy, by any means; her respect for Ferengi cunning had grown with each successive day. It was
no wonder, Leeta had realized, they rarely fired a
weapon in anger and yet remained a galactic power respected even by the
Federation.
For months, thus, she hadn’t dared say
a word, for fear of looking foolish before the gathered pecuniary
intelligentsia of Ferenginar.
If it hadn’t been for Moogie, she’d have given up after a week.
The most powerful woman in Ferengi history, though—wife to the previous Nagus and mother to the current one—had taken pity on her
daughter-in-law. Via subspace comm link from her Risian
bungalow, she had tutored Leeta hours each day,
patient and encouraging … but ruthless and unrelenting, as well.
And one day, a week ago, everything for
Leeta had just … clicked.
Now, having listened to economists for
a year and theologians for an hour…
…now
she had something to say.
Despite what most people thought, Leeta wasn’t stupid.
Despite what Leeta thought, though, she wasn’t
exactly smart, either.