Reardon

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Through the porthole-like view furnished by the binoculars, the thick cables of the Golden Gate Bridge glinted, their edges truly golden, silhouetted against the lowering sun dipping into the Pacific in the background. The stepped towers held the thick strands like some giant cat’s cradle, casting elongated shadows across the still-bright waters of San Francisco Bay. The foreshortened view offered by the powerful glasses made the heavy traffic on the bridge appear almost frozen, inching in both directions. The girl holding the glasses shook her head impatiently at the view; an architect herself, she considered the Golden Gate Bridge towers a design disaster, ruining what should have been the most beautiful bridge in the world. Grauman’s Chinese mixed with male Gothic, she thought, and wrinkled her tiny nose.

She dropped her field of vision to the waters beneath the bridge, searching for more interesting fare and suddenly caught her breath. An ocean liner, startling in its white symmetry, was slowly entering the harbor, barely moving as it awaited the immigration cutter. The small speedboat was visible in the field of vision, bouncing across the slightly choppy waters. A ship’s ladder angled sharply from the purser’s deck to just above the whitecaps of the bay, providing access for the officials when they arrived.

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