"The Engineer and the Artist Series: The Golden Gate Bridge" by Marsha C. Porter
   
"But I was expecting to see a depiction of the Golden Gate Bridge," said her 'Engineer-Guy,' looking at his 'Artist-One's' intensely geometric drawing. She tipped her head, fixed her eyes on his bright blues, and sighed, absorbing his confused expression. Why am I so crazy about this man? she thought.
   
She followed his gaze to her drawing: Dark oranges and deep indigo lines criss-crossing over top one another, zip-zapping rush-hour traffic — rusted-red ironwork mounting higher-and-higher in magnificent trapezoids, a luminous periwinkle-inked background — the sky and sea, sweet azure. Golden topaz triangles catapulting — the sun — grounding the left quadrant. Deep tracings, thick-edged, wildly offset — bridge supports. Dimension. She could hear horns honking. Her eyes could not keep pace with the zigzagging metal, the cars, and the bright San Francisco day.

"It is the Golden Gate Bridge!" she said. "You see the traffic, don't you?" She motioned with her hands back and forth — quick-quick-quick-quick — staccato-like. "It's afternoon. The traffic is particularly fast. Do you see it? And you might note the water's unusual shade of blue — darker than one would expect for the Bay … for that time of day, that is." 

Engineer-Guy kept looking at it. "That's not at all what I was expecting when you said you wanted to show me your drawing of the Golden Gate Bridge."    

"Really!" She quirked an eyebrow at him. She perused her drawing. It looks so … true, she thought. What else could it possibly be? 

She heard Jaix, her landlord's son, sprint the hallway steps between their row houses. Home for the summer from his university studies, Jaix, a music major, was interning with his uncle's architectural firm in the city. "Frozen music," he'd told her. "You've heard that, before — about architecture?" She had, actually. Couldn't think where, though.

"Jaix!" she said, smiling full affection at him — because he was a great kid — and because he was the age of her son, whom she missed. "Come take a look at this drawing!"

"Hmm …" he said, "Reminds me of …" He pulled his eyebrows down, thinking … "A bridge … that's it! The Golden Gate, actually …  Looks like really fast traffic."

"Yes! And did you notice," she said, "that the Bay is a darker shade of blue than one would expect?"

"For that time of day, yeah … I see it," he said.

Marsha C. Porter lives in Minneapolis, MN. She is a parent, an art therapist, and a mental health professional with the Collaborative Law Institute, providing support for those in the process of divorce. Her passion is writing, which she does in and around all parenting tasks and joys, whenever and however she can. Her first book, Take My Hand, Twelve Stories of Dissolution and Healing, was published December 2008, under the pen name Sasha Porter Blue. She is currently working on three more collections of essays, and on the publishing of her 'November Novel' (her 'National November Write a Novel' attempt).