Anne Tyler - Ladder of Years

“Oh, well, sure,” Belle said. “Congratulate me, I guess.” And her left hand rose swaybacked from the wheel for a moment so she could admire her diamond.

The Mermaid’s Chambers was a peeling turquoise motel on the wrong side of the highway, between a T-shirt shop and a liquor store. But Belle had got her a very good discount, and Delia wasn’t planning to spend much time in her room anyhow.

Each morning, she crossed the highway carrying her tote and a motel bedspread, along with a Styrofoam cup of coffee. She rented an umbrella on the beach and settled herself amid a crowd that thickened as the day progressed-squealing children, impossibly beautiful teenagers, parents in assorted weights and ages, and stringy white grandparents. First she sat drinking her coffee as she stared out at the horizon, and then, when she had finished, she pulled a book from her tote and started reading.

Here in Ocean City she was back to romances, an average of one a day. They seemed overblown and slushy after her library books, and she read them almost without thinking about them, paying more heed to the yellow warmth soaking through her umbrella, the cries of gulls and children, the sunburned feet scrunching past her in the sand. One day, she started a book about a bride who was kidnapped by her fiancé’s brother, and she realized partway through that this was what she’d been reading on last year’s vacation. She checked the title: yes, Captive of Clarion Castle. She gazed toward the ocean. A mother was holding her diapered baby just above reach of the surf, and the radios all around were playing “Under the Boardwalk,” and Delia fancied she caught sight of her own self strolling south alongside the festoons of sea foam.

Toward noon she would stand up and head toward the boardwalk for lunch. She ate in one or another rinky-dink café-a sandwich shop, a pizza joint-blinking away the purple spangles that swarmed across her vision in the sudden dimness. Then she returned to her umbrella and napped awhile, after which she read a bit more. Later she took a walk down the beach, just a short walk because her ankle still sent out a little blade of tenderness every time she put any weight on it. And then she went for her one swim of the day.

She spent forever submerging, like someone removing a strip of adhesive tape by painful degrees. Arms lifted fastidiously, stomach sucked in with a gasp, she advanced at a gingerly, crabwise angle so as to present the narrowest surface to the breakers. Finally, though, she was in, and not a hair on her head was dampened if she’d played her cards right. She floated far out with a smug sense of achievement, sending a lofty, amused glance shoreward whenever the swell she bobbed on crashed against the shrieking throngs in the shallows. And she always waited for the most docile wave to carry her back to land-although sometimes she misjudged and found herself knocked off her feet and churning underwater like a load of laundry.

Then she staggered onto the beach, streaming droplets and wringing out the skirt of her suit. By that time all her sunblock would have been washed off, and her face grew steadily pinker and more freckled over the course of her vacation. Her first act when she returned to her room at the end of every day was to check the mirror, and every day a more highly colored person gazed back at her. When she peeled off her swimsuit, a second suit of fish-white skin lay beneath it. In the shower her feet developed scarlet smatterings across the tops.

She lounged on the bed in Sam’s beach robe and toweled her hair dry. Filed her nails. Watched the news. Later, when the moldy-smelling, air-conditioned air began to chill her, she dressed and went out to dinner-a different restaurant each night. Her Sundays at the Bay Arms stood her in good stead, and she dined alone serenely, making her way through three full courses as she surveyed the nearby tables. Then she sat on the boardwalk awhile, if she could find an empty bench. The racket of video games and rock music pummeled her from behind; in front stretched the empty black ocean, fringing itself white beneath a partly erased disk of moon.

She was back in her room by nine most nights. In bed by ten. She turned off the air conditioner and slept under just a sheet, lightly sweating in the warm air that drifted through her window.

One day was cloudy, with scattered, spitting rain, and she stayed inside and watched TV. Talk shows, mostly: a whole new world. People would say anything on television, she found. Family members who hadn’t spoken in years spoke at length for the camera. Women wept in public. By the time Delia turned the set off her face ached, as if she’d attended too many social events. She went out for a walk and bought a new book to read, not a romance but something more serious and believable, about poor people living in Maine. For her walk she wore her Miss Grinstead cardigan, which clung gently to her arms and made her feel like a cherished child.

Twice she sent postcards to Noah at camp. Nice weather, nice waves, she wrote. That sort of thing. She bought a card for Joel too but couldn’t decide what to say. In the end, she wrote Belle instead. This was a really good idea. Thank you for setting things up for me. Belle’s friend Mineola, a dyed brunette in pedal pushers and stiletto heels, always greeted her amiably but otherwise left her alone, which suited Delia just fine.

Occasionally some jolt to the senses-a whiff of coconut oil, the grit of sand in her swimsuit seams-brought to mind the old family beach trips. She was returning her umbrella to the rental stall one afternoon when a child cried, “Ma, make Jenny carry something too!” which swept her back into that packing-up moment toward sunset each day when children beg to stay a little bit longer and grown-ups ask who’s got the rafts, where’s the green bucket, will somebody grab the thermos? She remembered the bickering, and the sting of carelessly kicked-up sand against burned skin, and the weighty, soft-boned weariness. She recalled each less-than-perfect detail, and yet still she would have given anything to find herself in one of those moments.

Whose sneakers are these? Someone’s forgetting their sneakers! Don’t come to me tomorrow whining about your sneakers!

She bought a postcard showing a dolphin, and she wrote on it, Dear Sam and kids, Just taking a little holiday, thinking about you all. Then it occurred to her that they might assume she was referring to this whole past year, not a mere two weeks in Ocean City; and she wasn’t certain how to clarify her meaning. She tore the card in half and threw it away.

On her last night, she was supposed to meet Ellie at The Sailor’s Dream. She regretted having agreed to it. Carrying on a conversation struck her all at once as a lot of work. However, canceling would have been work too, so she showed up at the appointed hour in front of the restaurant. Ellie was already standing under the awning. She wore a white halter dress shot with threads of silver, the kind of thing you’d expect to see on cruise ships, and she carried a little white purse shaped like a scallop shell. Men kept glancing over at her as they passed. “Why, Delia! Look at you!” she called. “Aren’t you all healthy and rosy!” Delia had forgotten how good it felt to have somebody know her by name and act glad to see her coming.

The Sailor’s Dream had the padded-leather atmosphere of an English gentlemen’s club, but with some differences. The carpet, for instance, gave off the same mushroom smell as the one in Delia’s motel room. And all the waiters were deeply tanned.

“So tell me,” Ellie said as soon as they were seated. “Have you been having a good time?”

“A lovely time,” Delia told her.

“Was this your first vacation by yourself?”