She's not an overachiever, no sir. All that Brigid Violet Dwyer, M. D. is is plain old smart -- smart, and hard-working. The letters after her name speak to that.
Other than the doctorate, what does she have, really? What is she?
Well, she has cute hair -- strawberry-blonde, long, straight, and braided. She never lets it down, though -- in the lab it gets in the way, and out of the lab it blows all in her face.
She's quiet -- being a teenager in med school will do that to you.
She has a good sense of humor -- she lets her few close acquaintances call her Doogie because she's so young. Even though Doogie Dwyer sounds kind of goofy, like a comic book character or someone from a movie, not like the quiet, clever daughter of a Midwestern secretary.
She's loyal -- when Valencia Martinez called her up and asked her to "look into a problem" (Val-speak for "do something stupid for me"), Brigid sprang at the offer. Not because it was an interesting "problem", but because it was her asking, one of the few people Brigid counts as a friend, or something like it.
And she's a lot younger than her driver's license says, mainly because of being in school while the other girls her age were partying -- she doesn't know how to dance, didn't have a prom to go to, won't smoke, won't drink (even now that she's legal), never swears, has never so much as kissed a boy, and still calls her mother every weekend.
She sticks her tongue out at herself in the mirror, hands still iron-tight on the sides of the sink. Brigid, you goody-goody, she kids herself. The only excitement she gets is academic -- scientific -- who needs parties and boys and dancing anyway? Why doncha live a little?
The world of science, though, is just as exciting as the "real world" of cigarettes, short skirts, and other girls her age. Why, three generations ago, her ancestors were poor immigrants, dockworkers, and maids, and here she is with Valencia Martinez number one on her speed dial, working with the climate-change equivalent of Greenpeace. And Brigid's just twenty-one.
The Dwyers have sure come a ways, she thinks, and grins at herself, blushing to the roots of her hair.
Margaret Dwyer wanted her daughter to be a waitress -- steady career, decent pay, and the work isn't dangerous. For a while, Brigid agreed with her mother -- she liked their uniforms, liked the way they took orders so precisely, liked the closeness of the kitchen.
But the little girl just sped through her schoolwork, went through high school by correspondence (after the first day of ninth grade, Brigid insisted -- she came home crying, and the other freshmen were so dumb and so much older,and after Margaret pried the story of how Tiffany Jones called her names and slapped her because Brigid didn't know not to talk to Tiffany's boyfriend, she was on the phone to the principal in an instant), then off to college in a whirl, and she forgot all about being a waitress.
And now just look at her -- smart, successful, and Jeb Batchelder keeps trying to talk to her, and...
Fang.
Her hands tighten on the... whatever sinks are made of, for a moment, and then she sighs and swipes at her cheeks with one unsteady hand, trying to flick away the blush. Oh God he's amazing. Even if she didn't know why he shouldn't be alive. He's exactly what Brigid should like.
Except she doesn't. He's nice and all, he actually talks to her, but... he's fourteen. When she was his age she was practically in college.
That and anyway she doesn't feel much towards him but scientific interest, except just a little bit of giggly blushiness, but that's probably because she's never known a guy who wasn't way older than her or one of her professors. Or both.
Talking with Fang makes Brigid want to find a hole and crawl in it, or just drop through the floor and vanish. What's she supposed to do when he looks her in the eyes? What should she say when he says that?
And she'd do anything to get away from Max. Brigid's got to be doing something wrong, desperately wrong, the way Max acts. The way she just glares, it sends chills up and down Brigid's spine, makes her blush a shamed bright red, just makes her want to apologize for daring to talk to a boy once in her short life.
Just... thinking about Max has Brigid all riled up. Her hands are shaking, she's blushing red and her face feels like it's on fire, and butterflies are all aflutter in her stomach, tickling her guts with their wings.
She grins sheepishly at herself in the mirror and pries her hands off the sink. Then turns on the tap with a snap -- splashes cold water on herself -- snaps the water off and stands there shaking for a moment, because she doesn't know what this is thinking about Max makes her feel, and Brigid's scared of that not-knowing. Not much scares her, but this does.
With a quick, decisive movement she starts unbraiding her hair.
Slips into her nightgown, then into bed, turning the lights off as she goes.
Lies there in the unfriendly dark, doesn't think about the weird fluttering turn-over-y feeling in her gut, the confused something-like-ecstasy maybe singing in her heart.
Holds her arms stiff at her sides until she falls asleep, because Doctor Brigid Dwyer is nothing if she isn't self-reliant, isn't strong, isn't certain in herself.
No, without all that she's nothing.