Happy All the Time

by Laurie Colwin

It was the sort of day that forced you out of the house and gave you nothing back in return.

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Her face seemed to print itself on his heart indelibly.

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Guido was not a fan of rashness. He had only shown what he felt, not told. He had always known that once his affections were firmly placed, excess would rapidly follow. Now what he felt was the emotional equivalent of extreme thirst. He wanted to stay up all night and watch Holly, who had gone off to sleep and left him.

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Guido found it curious that Vincent—who spent his life as a scientist analyzing—simply lived, while Guido, who simply lived, spent his life analyzing.

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“What I mean is, this is all very serious. I mean, if I am going to marry you, I feel I ought to turn it around in my mind and if we’re together, I get confused.”

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“That’s a step,” said Guido. “Most of your other girls didn’t seem capable of any human action.” “She’s full of human action,” said Vincent. “Her name is Misty Berkowitz and she hates everything.”

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Misty was stoical about her names. She had ceased to cringe at either Misty or Amelia. She felt that all girls should be called Mary and since she was not she would have to endure, although she took a grim, ironic pleasure in the fact that there was nothing misty in her character.

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At the time, she could not quite distinguish between love, lust, confusion, and longing. That mixture looked briefly like the real thing. As a result, their alliance did not amount to much. It simply turned Misty around. It gave her a taste of what she now knew she was too old for: that high-flown emotional deprivation that is the earmark of hopeless romantic love.

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This affair was intensely painful for a short time. When the pain passed, revelation set in. From John Bride, Misty learned that yearning was a remarkably time-consuming pastime and that it was not especially useful.

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Misty’s personality was a deliberate creation. She felt she was not unlike one of those seashells that looks elaborate, but is only the housing for a very soft animal. There was no point—and no fun—in committing the imitative fallacy in matters of self, especially when the self you were housing was moved by scenes of ordinary human kindness. It seemed to her unwise to let the world at large know how easily moved she was, so she kept it to herself. Even John Bride, who behaved like a creature from another planet who had come to earth to see how its creatures might amuse him, was unaware of how deep her feelings were.

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Although by action she seemed to love him ardently, Holly did not seem to live in the realm of the emotions. She felt, she emoted, and she never gave it a second thought. The complexities of love and marriage were things she lived with and through, and that was that. Guido, to whom thinking and feeling were the same thing, was learning that you might live with someone whose sense of life was not your own.

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Holly had no ambitions to speak of, except to live nicely from day to day. Since she had enough money to support this one ambition, she devoted her life to domestic genius.

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“We’re in the prime of life. Do you still feel like a child? I do. Why is my life so useless?

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“Go talk to the headmaster,” said Guido. “That’s just it,” said Vincent. “I keep waiting around for someone to tell me to shape up, but no one does. I keep thinking that when I’m older, I’ll get a grip on all this. One morning, I’ll wake up and and be a grownup.” “No, you won’t,” said Guido. “You’ll just wake up and feel tireder than usual and then you’ll find that you’ve run out of patience with a lot of things you thought were normal. Or you’ll get lucky.”

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“All right,” said Guido. “Vincent is my oldest friend. He’s very fond of you. I don’t want his heart broken by a hostile teenager.”

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“I am not hostile and I am not a teenager,” said Misty. “And I was not put on this earth to break hearts. Take it from me, I don’t hang around with people I don’t like. I am actually a very upstanding young woman but it takes the average citizen years to find out.”

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“Life has been very perfect lately. It’s so perfect I find it a little frightening. I almost can’t see it. I think we need an artificial break. I think we need to be apart just for a little bit. I’m afraid that if one of us doesn’t do this, we will wake up one morning covered with emotional cobwebs and taking each other for granted.”

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“Guido,” said Holly, “we have a better marriage than most people. We like each other more. We are better friends. We have more fun. We have nicer dinners. But I think we are getting very used to it. Life is simply going on and on. I want to do something daring for us. I also need a little space for myself. I think some deprivation will do us a world of good.”

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“I love you,” said Vincent. “I don’t believe you,” said Misty. “I think you find me sociologically interesting. You like the novelty but it’ll wear off and then you’ll get bored.”

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“My feelings about you appear to transcend analysis.” “Wonderful,” said Vincent. “What are they?” “I just love you,” she mumbled. “Speak up, please,” said Vincent. “I said, I just love you. Isn’t that banal?” “What a relief,” said Vincent, smiling.

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“Holly’s pregnant,” said Guido, wearily. “Oh,” said Misty. “Vincent doesn’t know that.” “No,” said Guido. “And I don’t want him to know. I’m afraid I just can’t face his smiles of delight at this wonderful news.” “I see.” “You probably do,” said Guido. “I guess I thought I could count on you not to chirp with joy. I need to talk to someone, and that someone is you.”

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I can see your point and you’re entitled to it. But you have to see Holly’s and Holly is not you. Besides, Holly answers everything you think about the world and loves you too. You win both ways. You can brood with nothing very serious to brood about. You can think the universe is dark and full of awful surprises and you can be right and wrong at the same time. Holly is the perfect wife for you. If you were married to someone just like you, the two of you would sit around and discuss every tiny event in your past, present, and future and you’d never have any fun.”

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The big surprise that marriage to Vincent had sprung on her was contentment. She had moments of desolation and moments of great joy, but underneath was some steady current of feeling. Misty’s propensity toward pessimism and Vincent’s toward optimism really did complement. Vincent was no less cheerful, and Misty was only slightly less judgmental, but they seemed to have formed a third person who smoothed out their edges and made life together possible and profitable. Misty excepted Vincent from the rest of human kind. He had his faults, but he was genuinely kind and true. He played fair and was generous. The difference between them was that Vincent really did believe that things worked out for the best and Misty did not. In Misty’s world, the happy, comfortable, intelligent wife is left by a good, well-intentioned dummy who goes off with a woman whose childhood was ended by a dead horse.

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