Happy All the Time

by Laurie Colwin

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.

We could go on and on quite happily but I think you have to interrupt things once in a while in order to get perspective.”

She sat reflecting on the civil war between her character and personality. One had trapped the other. Her character, she decided, was like the tender stomach of a porcupine and her personality was a bunch of quills.

Vincent accused her of nastiness, but she knew that if she expressed even a small amount of the tenderness she felt she would be in tears most of the time.