Office at Night by Pamela Painter Edward Hopper, Office at Night, 1940 They don't seem to be working, though up to a few minutes ago, she was filing papers. A man (whom we assume is her boss) sits reading a page at his desk, holding it beneath a green banker's light. Her plump right arm is bent to encompass a generous bosom and her right hand rests on the edge of the open file drawer. Perhaps seconds ago she turned toward the man at the desk. Her face is vulnerable, intent. She is waiting. A piece of paper, partly hidden by the desk, lies on the floor between her and the man. We are led to believe that Edward Hopper is in a train, glimpsing this scene as he is passing by on Chicago's El. A voluptuous curve—perhaps the most voluptuous in all of Hopper's paintings, almost to a surreal degree—belongs to this secretary in the night-blue dress in "Office at Night," an oil on canvas, l940. What word, in 1940, would have been used to describe those rounded globes beneath the stretch, from rounded hip to hip, of her blue dress? If it weren't for that piece of paper on the floor, we might believe the museum's prim description of this painting. It says: "The secretary's exaggerated sexualized persona contrasts with the buttoned-up indifference of her boss; the frisson of their intimate overtime is undermined by a sense that the scene's erotic expectations are not likely to be met." Indifference? Wrong. The man is far too intent on the paper he is reading—and he is not sitting head-on at his desk. He is somewhat tilted—toward the secretary. His mouth is slightly open as if to speak. His left ear is red. It is. It is red. And what of their day? Her desk faces his in this small cramped office. He must have looked up from his papers to say to her, seated behind her black typewriter, that tonight they must stay late. Did she call her mother, or two roommates she met while attending Katherine Gibbs, to say her boss asked her to stay late? On other evenings, she would have finished dinner, perhaps been mending her stockings or watching the newsreel at the cinema's double feature. But here she is tonight, looking down at the paper on the floor. Was it she who dropped it? It is true that her dress has a chaste white collar, but the deep V of the neckline will surely fall open when she stoops to retrieve it. Or did the man drop the paper? Is she acknowledging this before she stoops over, perhaps bending at the knees over her spiffy black pumps, to retrieve the page? Another paper has been nudged toward the desk's edge and shows a refusal to lie flat in the slight breeze blowing the window shade into the office. Other papers are held in place by the 1940s telephone, so heavy that in a forties noir film it might serve as the murder weapon. Perhaps this story began at an earlier time. It might already be a situation, causing the young woman, just this morning, to choose this particular blue dress. We are all in the middle of their drama. She will bend before him. Someone will turn off the lights. They will leave before midnight. Perhaps it won't turn out well. But for now her blue dress cannot be ignored. All content in SmokeLong Quarterly copyright 2003-2010 by its authors.
	Pamela Painter is the author of two story collections, Getting to Know the Weather, which won the GLCA Award for First Fiction, and The Long and Short of It. She is also the co-author of What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, Kenyon Review, Mid-American Review, Ploughshares, and Quick Fiction, among others and in numerous anthologies, such as Sudden Fiction, Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Forward and MicroFiction. A recent interview and essay appear in Iron Horse, and The Field Guide to Flash Fiction. She has received grants from The Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts, has won three Pushcart Prizes and Agni Review’s The John Cheever Award for Fiction. Painter’s stories have been presented on stage by Word Theatre, Stage Turner, and Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre. A recent prize-winning story was recorded on a Norton CD titled "Love Hurts." Painter lives in Boston and teaches in the Writing, Literature and Publishing Program at Emerson College. Read the interview. "Office at Night" by Edward Hopper, 1940, oil on canvas, 22-3/16" x 25-1/8" was a gift of the T. B. Walker Foundation, Gilbert M. Walker Fund to Collection Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and is reproduced here by permission of the Collection Walker Art Center.
	Issue Twenty-Six (September 28, 2009): The Teaching Assistant and the Math Professor by Shaindel Beers «» Ask for This by Myfanwy Collins «» Arrows by Lydia Copeland «» Pregnant With Peanut Butter by Michael Czyzniejewski «» How to Disappear Completely by Nadine Darling «» The Guitarist by Will Donnelly «» Prague by Kathy Fish «» Record Albums by Sherrie Flick «» Cooped by Alyson Foster «» Eye by Foust «» Grendel by Steven Gullion «» First Husband by Tiff Holland «» They Marched Into Fields by Jamie Iredell «» Port of Spain by Beverly A. Jackson «» Nobody Like You by Jeff Landon «» Little Girls by Tara Laskowski «» Office at Night by Pamela Painter «» So Long by Ellen Parker «» Quiet Things by Lauren M. Spencer «» My Girlfriend Leaves the Atmosphere by Angi Becker Stevens «» In Julie's Place by S. A. Tranter «» Blue-Suited Henchman, Kicked Into Shark Tank by Kevin Wilson «» 2 / 8 by Joseph Young «» Interviews: Shaindel Beers «» Myfanwy Collins «» Lydia Copeland «» Michael Czyzniejewski «» Nadine Darling «» Will Donnelly «» Kathy Fish «» Sherrie Flick «» Alyson Foster «» Foust «» Steven Gullion «» Tiff Holland «» Jamie Iredell «» Beverly A. Jackson «» Jeff Landon «» Tara Laskowski «» Pamela Painter «» Ellen Parker «» Lauren M. Spencer «» Angi Becker Stevens «» S. A. Tranter «» Joseph Young «» Cover Art "Birds of Paradise" by Marty D. Ison «» Letter From the Editor