The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken (essential books to read .txt) 📗

fly right. A testy man—No, no, no, no: listener—he called his listeners listener—listener, this is your wake-up call.

But Dr. Benjamin practiced compassion, with that deep voice and his big feelings. Once you forgive yourself, you can forgive your mother, he would say. Or perhaps it was the other way around: your mother first, then you. He told stories of his own terrible decisions. Unlike some voices, his had ballast and breadth. For some reason I had pictured him as bald, in a bow tie. I pictured all male radio hosts as bald and bow tied, until presented with evidence to the contrary. Instead he had a thatch of silver hair. The expensive shirt. Cowboy boots.

I listened to his show all the time, because I hated him. I thought he gave terrible advice. He believed in God and tried to convince other people to do likewise. Sheila from Hoboken, Ann from Nashville, Patrick from Daly City. On the radio it didn’t matter where you lived, small town or the suburbs or New York City (though nobody from New York City ever called Dr. Benjamin): you had the same access to the phone lines and radio waves. You were allowed to broadcast your loneliness to the world, in the hours between eleven p.m. through two a.m. Central Standard Time. Every so often a caller started to say something that promised absolute humiliation and I would have to fly across the room to snap the radio off. My husband cannot satisfy me, Doc—

So long ago! I can’t remember faces but I can remember voices. I can’t remember smells but I remember in all its dimensions the way I felt in those days. The worst thing about not being loved, I thought then, was how vivid I was to myself.

Now I am loved and in black and white.

Up close he seemed vast. Paul Bunyan-y, as though he’d drunk up the contents of that swimming pool to quench his thirst, though he didn’t look quenched. Those outdated glasses had just a tinge of purple to the lenses. Impossible to tell whether this was fashion or prescription, something to protect his eyes. His retinas, I told myself. He was all the way at the bottom of the hoop of the horseshoe, his body at an angle. I sat at the edge of the booth to give him room.

He said, “Better?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Are you a real doctor?”

He stretched then, the tomcat, his arms over his head. His big steel watch slipped down his wrist. “Sure.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m not a medical doctor,” he allowed.

“I know that,” I said.

“Then yes. Yes, I’m a doctor.”

The table had an air of vacancy: he’d eaten his breakfast, and it had been tidied away except for the vest pocket bottles of ketchup and Tabasco sauce, and a basket filled with tiny muffins. I took one, blueberry, and held it to the light. The waiter delivered the second Bloody Mary I hadn’t ordered, unless by telepathy. “You have a PhD,” I said.

“Yes.”

“It’s strange.”

“That I have a PhD?”

“That we call people who study English literature for too long the same thing we call people who perform brain surgery.”

“Oh dear,” he said. “Psychology, not English literature.”

“I’d like to see your suite.”

He shook his head.

“Why not?”

“I’m married,” he said. “You know that.”

I did. Her name was Evaline. He mentioned her all the time: he called her Evaline Benjamin, the Love of My Life.

“That’s not what I mean,” I said, and I tore the little muffin in half, because maybe it was what I meant. No, I told myself. Every time I walked down a hotel hallway I peered into open doors. Was there a better room behind this door? A better view out the window of the room? Out of all these dozens of rooms, where would I be happiest, by which I mean, least like myself? I only wanted to see all the hotel rooms of the world, all the other places I might be. I was waiting to be diagnosed.

He said, “You’re a nice young woman, but you won’t cut yourself a break. All right,” he said. “Okay. We can go to my suite. They’ve probably finished making it up.”

Even the hallways were pink and red, the gore and frill of a Victorian valentine: one of those mysterious valentines, with a pretty girl holding a guitar-sized fish. The suite was less garish, less whorehouse, less rubescent, with a crystal chandelier, that timeless symbol of One’s Money’s Worth. The two sofas were as blue and buttoned as honor guards. A mint-green stuffed rabbit sat in a pale salmon armchair.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He looked at it as though it were a girl who’d snuck into his room and had taken all her clothes off and here came the question: throw her out, or . . . not.

“A present,” he said.

“Who from?”

“Not from. For. Somebody else. Somebody who failed to show up.”

“A child.”

He shook his big head. “Not a child. She must have lost her nerve. She was supposed to be here yesterday.”

“Maybe she realized you were the kind of man who’d give a stuffed bunny to a grown woman.”

He regarded me through the purple glasses. Amethyst, I thought. My birthstone. Soon I would be twenty-eight. “You are young to be so unkind,” he observed. “She collects stuffed animals.” He turned again to the rabbit and seemed to lose heart. “This is supposed to be a good one.”

“What makes a good one?”

“Collectible. But also it’s pleasant.” He plucked it from the chair and hugged it. “Pleasant to hug.”

“Careful. It’s probably worth more uncuddled.” I put myself on the chair where the rabbit had been. I don’t know why I thought the chair might be warm. He sat in one of the corners of the sofa closest to me.

“I thought you might be her,” he told me. “But you’re not old enough. How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Not nearly old enough.”

“Do I look like her?”

“Oh. I mean, I’m not sure.” He made the rabbit look out the window, and so I looked, too, but