Anne Tyler: Ladder of Years

She felt dislocated for a second, until she understood that Rosemary must be in earshot again. Sure enough: a tote basket, still loaded, arrived on the counter behind her own groceries. By now the old woman had moved away, tottering under her burden of dog chow, and the cashier was asking them, “Plastic bags, or paper?”

“Plastic, please,” Adrian said.

Delia opened her mouth to object (she generally chose paper, herself), but she didn’t want to contradict Adrian in front of his wife.

Adrian said, “Delia, I don’t believe you’ve met my…”

Delia turned around, already plastering a pleasantly surprised smile on her face.

“My, ah, Rosemary,” Adrian said, “and her, ah, Skipper. This is Delia Grinstead.”

Rosemary wasn’t smiling at all, which made Delia feel foolish, but Skipper gave her an amiable nod. He kept his arms folded across his chest-short, muscular arms, heavily furred, bulging from the sleeves of his polo shirt. “Any relation to Dr. Grinstead?” he asked her.

“Yes! He’s my… he was my… he’s my husband,” she said. How to explain the existence of a husband, in the present situation?

But Skipper seemed to take this in stride. He told Rosemary, “Dr. Grinstead’s my mother’s GP. Been treating her forever. Right?” he asked Delia.

“Right,” she agreed, not having the faintest idea. Rosemary, meanwhile, went on studying her coolly. She carried her head at a deliberate tilt, accentuating the asymmetrical hairdo with its dramatic downward slant toward her chin. It was none of Delia’s business, of course, but privately she thought Adrian deserved somebody more likable. She thought even Skipper deserved somebody more likable. She wished she had worn high heels this morning, and a dressier dress.

“Dr. Grinstead is just about the last man in Baltimore who makes house calls,” Skipper was telling Rosemary.

“Well, only if it’s absolutely essential,” Delia said. A reflex: she never gave up trying to protect her husband from his patients.

Behind her, the scanner said peep… peep… peep, registering her groceries. The music had stopped playing several minutes back, as Delia just now noticed, and the murmuring of shoppers elsewhere in the store sounded hushed and ominous.

“That’ll be thirty-three forty,” the cashier announced.

Delia turned to fill in her check and found Adrian handing over the money. “Oh!” she said, preparing to argue. But then she grew conscious of Rosemary listening.

Adrian flashed her a wide, sweet smile and accepted his change. “Good seeing you,” he told the other couple. He walked on out, pushing the cart, with Delia trailing behind.

It had been raining off and on for days, but this morning had dawned clear and the parking lot had a rinsed, fresh, soft look under a film of lemony sunlight. Adrian halted the cart at the curb and lifted out two of the grocery bags, leaving the third for Delia. Next came the problem of whose car to head for. He was already starting toward his own, which was evidently parked somewhere near the dry cleaner’s, when she stopped him. “Wait,” she said. “I’m right here.”

“But what if they see us? We can’t leave in two different cars!”

“Well, I do have a life to get back to,” Delia snapped. This whole business had gone far enough, it occurred to her. She was missing her baby-food spinach and her cornflakes and untold other items on account of a total stranger. She flung open the trunk of her Plymouth.

“Oh, all right,” Adrian said. “What we’ll do is load these groceries very, very slowly, and by that time they’ll have driven away. They didn’t have so much to ring up: two steaks, two potatoes, a head of lettuce, and a box of after-dinner mints. That won’t take long.”

Delia was astonished at his powers of observation. She watched him arrange his bags in her trunk, after which he consumed a good half minute repositioning a small box of something. Orzo, it was-a most peculiar, tiny-sized pasta that she’d often noticed on the shelf but never bought. She had thought it resembled rice, in which case why not serve rice instead, which was surely more nutritious? She handed him the bag she was holding, and he settled that with elaborate care between the first two. “Are they coming out yet?” he asked.

“No,” she said, looking past him toward the store. “Listen, I owe you some money.”

“My treat.”

“No, really, I have to pay you back. Only I planned to write a check and I don’t have any cash. Would you accept a check? I could show you my driver’s license,” she said.

He laughed.

“I’m serious,” she told him. “If you don’t mind taking a-”

Then she caught sight of Skipper and Rosemary emerging from the supermarket. Skipper hugged a single brown paper bag. Rosemary carried nothing but a purse the size of a sandwich, on a glittery golden chain.

“Is it them?” Adrian asked.

“It’s them.”

He bent inside her trunk and started rearranging groceries again. “Tell me when they’re gone,” he said.

The couple crossed to a low red sports car. Rosemary was at least Skipper’s height if not taller, and she had the slouching, indifferent gait of a runway model. If she had walked into a wall, her hipbones would have hit first.

“Are they looking our way?” Adrian asked.

“I don’t think they see us.”

Skipper opened the passenger door, and Rosemary folded herself out of sight. He handed in the sack of groceries and shut the door, strode to the driver’s side, slid in and started the engine. Only then did he shut his own door. With a tightly knit, snarling sound, the little car spun around and buzzed off.

“They’re gone,” Delia said.

Adrian closed the trunk lid. He seemed older now. For the first time, Delia saw the fragile lines etched at the corners of his mouth.

“Well,” he said sadly.

It seemed crass to mention money again, but she had to say, “About the check…”

“Please. I owe you,” he said. “I owe you more than that. Thanks for going along with me on this.”

“It was nothing,” she told him. “I just wish there’d been, oh, somebody really appropriate.”

“Appropriate?”

“Somebody… you know,” she said. “As glamorous as your wife.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Why, you’re very pretty! You have such a little face, like a flower.”

She felt herself blushing. He must have thought she was fishing for compliments. “Anyhow, I’m glad I could help out,” she said. She backed away from him and opened her car door. “Bye, now!”

“Goodbye,” he said. “Thanks again.”

As if he had been her host, he went on standing there while she maneuvered out of the parking slot. Naturally she made a mess of it, knowing he was watching. She cut her wheel too sharply, and the power-steering belt gave an embarrassing screech. But finally the car was free and she rolled away. Her rearview mirror showed Adrian lifting a palm in farewell, holding it steady until she turned south at the light.

Halfway home, she had a sudden realization: she should have given him the groceries he had picked out. Good heavens-all that pasta, those little grains of orzo, and now she remembered his consommé too. Consommé madrilene: she wasn’t even sure how to pronounce it. She was driving away with property that belonged to someone else, and it was shameful how pleased she felt, and how lucky, and how rich.

The trouble with plastic bags was, those convenient handles tempted you to carry too many at once. Delia had forgotten that. She remembered halfway across her front yard, when the crooks of her fingers began to ache. She hadn’t been able to bring the car around to the rear because someone’s station wagon was blocking the driveway. Nailed to the trunk of the largest oak was a rusty metal sign directing patients to park on the street, but people tended to ignore it.