Bird of Paradise

Brigid goes to college. A forty-thousand-a-year-and-growing school, tuition not population. The population is somewhere shy of five thousand. Small enough to stand out, big enough to get lost in. Halcyon is the Accelerated English word she uses to describe it.

Her course load is heavy. She takes "Calculus II" and is taught by a man on a compact disc, the answers from whom she later verifies with the man in the classroom. There are focused classes such as "Political Thought: Machiavelli to Mill," and the broader "Making of the Modern World." She enjoys the latter; they discuss the sugar trades, globalization, her professor is difficult and expects a lot out of her.

In the nearly two years she has been at school Brigid hasn't had time to read for pleasure. She read half of The Da Vinci Code, she needed something to help turn her brain off at four in the morning. Otherwise she pores over political musings, logarithms, Heart of Darkness in a day. And it's not that the readings aren't enjoyable, that they don't teach her to think in a way she's never thought before. But they are assignments after all.

She works at the student union, at the front desk, signing for and delivering packages, answering phones, answering questions. She works in the dance building after class, cleaning the studio, general office work. She signs up for any psychology major's study that pays a little something. She has student loans, government loans, there's only so much awarded that she doesn't have to give back with interest. She is learning a lot.

Brigid strips some weekends at Bird of Paradise. It's one county over, easy enough to get to but not so easy that she might run into classmates. You might not know everyone on campus, but you recognize them. You know who belongs and who doesn't. She's good at dancing, at enticing. Perhaps it's because she removes herself, she is not there, she is out of her head, as far away as she can be while not spinning off the pole. She can just be free, exhausted and grabbed at in the beer-soaked booth of this underlit gentleman's club. It's the price she pays for going one county over.

On Sunday she wakes up at quarter to two, right before the dining hall closes. She rushes in time to get a plate of pancakes, bacon, fruit, coffee, fill up a large thermos with cereal and get a sandwich to go. She has a paper to write, she won't have time to leave the library, and she gets so hungry late at night.