AN AUTOMAT AT NOON. A comely redhead in a cornflower blue dress sits by the window, showing too much cleavage for 1958. A man on his lunchbreak at the next table, eying her hungrily as if she's the meatloaf special. A room with no other occupants.
This painting must be worth eighty million, Howard says and I cringe at what a philistine he is, his lack of appreciation for color, shading, brushstroke, tone.
It’s by Edward Hopper, he announces, squinting to read the card on the wall.
Of course. I knew right away by the loneliness of the figures eating lunch separately, how each of them seems solitary, trapped.
God, he was a cold dude, Howard says. His stuff is so static.
Static, I want to yell, startling the sleepy-eyed guard in the corner. The man was a master at describing how alienated we are, the tragedy of the human condition.
But I don’t reply because we have a mortgage. Two kids. A shared health plan. Debating the nuances of a 68-year-old painting is a hill I refuse to die on.
Do you think he’ll ask her out?
I study the man in the picture. Then the redhead, who’s staring at her coffee cup, lost in contemplation. Her expression is ambiguous. There’s an edgy stillness to the scene. Two people aware of each other’s presence but never connecting. A shadow cuts the painting in half, grey oils creating yet another division between them.
Probably not.
Howard takes hold of my hand. Are you hungry? There’s overpriced sandwiches next to the gift shop.
His touch feels familiar. He smells like pine soap. Our girls adore him. As we leave the gallery, we get a final glimpse of the people in the paintings – bored, regretful, resigned – pinned by paint to the canvas.
— BETH SHERMAN
Beth Sherman’s novella-in-flash, How to Get There from Here, will be published in July 2026 by Ad Hoc Fiction. She lives on Long Island and has had more than 200 stories featured in literary journals, including Ghost Parachute, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres and Smokelong Quarterly, where she’s a Submissions Editor. Her work appears in Best Microfiction 2024 and 2026 and Best Small Fictions 2025. She’s the author of five mystery novels.