Anne Tyler: Ladder of Years

Copyright © 1995

BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION

Delaware State Police announced early today that Cordelia F. Grinstead, 40, wife of a Roland Park physician, has been reported missing while on holiday with her family in Bethany Beach.

Mrs. Grinstead was last seen around noon this past Monday, walking south along the stretch of sand between Bethany and Sea Colony.

Witnesses of her departure-her husband, Dr. Samuel Grinstead, 55, and her three children, Susan, 21, Ramsay, 19, and Carroll, 15-were unable to recall any suspicious characters in the vicinity. They reported that to the best of their recollection she simply strolled away. Her failure to return was not remarked until late afternoon.

A slender, small-boned woman with curly fair or light-brown hair, Mrs. Grinstead stands 5’2” or possibly 5’5” and weighs either 90 or 110 pounds. Her eyes are blue or gray or perhaps green, and her nose is mildly sunburned in addition to being freckled.

Presumably she was carrying a large straw tote trimmed with a pink bow, but family members could not agree upon her clothing. In all probability it was something pink or blue, her husband suggested, either frilled or lacy or “looking kind of baby-doll.”

Authorities do not suspect drowning, since Mrs. Grinstead avoided swimming whenever possible and professed a distinct aversion to water. In fact, her sister, Eliza Felson, 52, has alleged to reporters that the missing woman “may have been a cat in her most recent incarnation.”

Anyone with knowledge of Mrs. Grinstead’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Delaware State Police at once.

This all started on a Saturday morning in May, one of those warm spring days that smell like clean linen. Delia had gone to the supermarket to shop for the week’s meals. She was standing in the produce section, languidly choosing a bunch of celery. Grocery stores always made her reflective. Why was it, she was wondering, that celery was not called “corduroy plant”? That would be much more colorful. And garlic bulbs should be “moneybags,” because their shape reminded her of the sacks of gold coins in folktales.

A customer on her right was sorting through the green onions. It was early enough so the store was nearly empty, and yet this person seemed to be edging in on her a bit. Once or twice the fabric of his shirt sleeve brushed her dress sleeve. Also, he was really no more than stirring those onions around. He would lift one rubber-banded clump and then drop it and alight on another. His fingers were very long and agile, almost spidery. His cuffs were yellow oxford cloth.

He said, “Would you know if these are called scallions?”

“Well, sometimes,” Delia said. She seized the nearest bunch of celery and stepped toward the plastic bags.

“Or would they be shallots?”

“No, they’re scallions,” she told him.

Needlessly, he steadied the roll of bags overhead while she peeled one off. (He towered a good foot above her.) She dropped the celery into the bag and reached toward the cup of twist ties, but he had already plucked one out for her. “What are shallots, anyway?” he asked.

She would have feared that he was trying to pick her up, except that when she turned she saw he was surely ten years her junior, and very good-looking besides. He had straight, dark-yellow hair and milky blue eyes that made him seem dreamy and peaceful. He was smiling down at her, standing a little closer than strangers ordinarily stand.

“Um…,” she said, flustered.

“Shallots,” he reminded her.

“Shallots are fatter,” she said. She set the celery in her grocery cart. “I believe they’re above the parsley,” she called over her shoulder, but she found him next to her, keeping step with her as she wheeled her cart toward the citrus fruits. He wore blue jeans, very faded, and soft moccasins that couldn’t be heard above “King of the Road” on the public sound system.

“I also need lemons,” he told her.

She slid another glance at him.

“Look,” he said suddenly. He lowered his voice. “Could I ask you a big favor?”

“Um…”

“My ex-wife is up ahead in potatoes. Or not ex I guess but… estranged, let’s say, and she’s got her boyfriend with her. Could you just pretend we’re together? Just till I can duck out of here?”

“Well, of course,” Delia said.

And without even taking a deep breath first, she plunged happily back into the old high-school atmosphere of romantic intrigue and deception. She narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin and said, “We’ll show her!” and sailed past the fruits and made a U-turn into root vegetables. “Which one is she?” she murmured through ventriloquist lips.

“Tan shirt,” he whispered. Then he startled her with a sudden burst of laughter. “Ha, ha!” he told her too loudly. “Aren’t you clever to say so!”

But “tan shirt” was nowhere near an adequate description. The woman who turned at the sound of his voice wore an ecru raw-silk tunic over black silk trousers as slim as two pencils. Her hair was absolutely black, cut shorter on one side, and her face was a perfect oval. “Why, Adrian,” she said. Whoever was with her-some man or other-turned too, still gripping a potato. A dark, thick man with rough skin like stucco and eyebrows that met in the middle. Not up to the woman’s standard at all; but how many people were?

Delia’s companion said, “Rosemary. I didn’t see you. So don’t forget,” he told Delia, not breaking his stride. He set a hand on her cart to steer it into aisle 3. “You promised me you’d make your marvelous blancmange tonight.”

“Oh, yes, my… blancmange,” Delia echoed faintly. Whatever blancmange might be, it sounded the way she felt just then: pale and plain-faced and skinny, with her freckles and her frizzy brown curls and her ruffled pink round-collared dress.

They had bypassed the dairy case and the juice aisle, where Delia had planned to pick up several items, but she didn’t point that out because this Adrian person was still talking. “Your blancmange and then your, uh, what, your meat and vegetables and da-da-da…”

The way he let his voice die reminded her of those popular songs that end with the singers just absentmindedly drifting away from the microphone. “Is she looking at us?” he whispered. “Check it out. Don’t make it obvious.”

Delia glanced over, pretending to be struck by a display of converted rice. Both the wife and the boyfriend had their backs to her, but there was something artificial in their posture. No one could find russet potatoes so mesmerizing. “Well, she’s mentally looking,” Delia murmured. She turned to see her grocery cart rapidly filling with pasta. Egg noodles, rotini, linguine- Adrian flung in boxes at random. “Excuse me…,” she said.

“Oh, sorry,” he told her. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and loped off. Delia followed, pushing her cart very slowly in case he meant for them to separate now. But at the end of the aisle, he paused and considered a row of tinned ravioli until she caught up with him. “The boyfriend’s name is Skipper,” he said. “He’s her accountant.”

“Accountant!” Delia said. He didn’t fit the image.

“Half a dozen times, at least, he’s come to our house. Sat in our actual living room, going over her taxes. Rosemary owns this catering firm. The Guilty Party, it’s called. Ha. ‘Sinfully Delicious Foods for Every Occasion.’ Then next thing I know, she’s moved in with him. She claimed she only needed a few weeks by herself, but when she phoned to say so, I could hear him coaching her in the background.”