How pleasing to the hopes of man
Is woman blessed with graceful poise,
That in the crude and tattered land
Her clement manner springeth joys.
-Anonymous

Alyssa’s home was far from Beverly Hills. She cleaned teeth in a small dentist’s office and lived in a boxy house in the suburbs with her dachshund Miles.

Every morning Alyssa walked five blocks to work in clean scrubs and a ponytail, and every evening she would return, fluoride-stained and hair-disheveled, smiling through and through.

Alyssa loved the wind. Her favorite time of year was autumn, when the clouds rolled in and swept up the leaves in a pinwheel of dazzling reds and golds. Alyssa would dance barefoot in the backyard on those days, hugged by the breeze in glorious pandemonium.

The television, had Alyssa owned one, would have raged about Prada bags and eyebrow waxing, while the latest fashion mags demanding weight loss sat unsold in the dark. But with love and joy and a dog named Miles, plain Alyssa sparkled more beautifully than them all.