May-Lan Tan - Things to Make and Break

Table of Contents

First U.S. edition published 2018

Copyright 2014 by May-Lan Tan

Cover illustration Carolyn Swiszcz

Cover design by Christina Vang

Book design by Ann Sudmeier

Author photograph Bettina Volke

First published in the United Kingdom by CB Editions in 2014

Coffee House Press books are available to the trade through our primary distributor, Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, .

Coffee House Press is a nonprofit literary publishing house. Support from private foundations, corporate giving programs, government programs, and generous individuals helps make the publication of our books possible. We gratefully acknowledge their support in detail in the back of this book.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Tan, May-Lan, author.

Title: Things to make and break / May-Lan Tan.

Description: First U.S. edition. | Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2018. | First published in the United Kingdom by CB Editions in 2014ECIP galley.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018011504 | ISBN 9781566895354 (eBook)

Classification: LCC PR6120.A46 A6 2018 | DDC 823/.92dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011504

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Legendary first appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, DD-MM-YY in Aret, 101 in the Reader, and Julia K. in the Atlas Review.

The author is grateful to her mother and her father and to Siu-Lan Tan, Danny Kim, David Riding, Kevin Sampsell, and Gordon Lish. Special thanks to Emily Gould and Ruth Curry.

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For Siu-Lan

Contents

He doesnt really talk about them. At least, he never tells me anything I want to know, their hang-ups or what kind of pretty they are. He tells only half a story about each of them, and he tells it three times. Verbatim, as if he has it written on the cuff of his sleeve. Normally he doesnt have two words to rub together, but when he does, something kind of flickers. These broken sparks and the three-times-telling make his exes seem mythical, crystalline.

When he tells me about Holly for the first time, were at the movies sitting too close to the screen. Were watching the trailers and hes tracing shapes on the sensitive part of my wrist with his thumb. Every one of his exes has a thingtheyve been molested or are a cellist or something. Holly shattered seventeen bones falling from a trapeze. She was wearing a cast and working in a library when he met her. Ten weeks later, when all the bones were knit, he finally saw her do her act. Thats when he dumped her. He doesnt say, but I guess she must have looked too free and capable up there, swinging from the ropes. A girl like that could never honestly need you.

Were fighting and driving to the coast. His sister is marrying a guy he made out with at prep school, and were late for the rehearsal dinner because I put the car keys in my coat and then packed it. After being quiet for twenty minutes he tells me about Holly again, a way of making up.

Why do you like her so much better than the others?

What do you mean?

Shes the only one with a name.

Thats crazy, he says.

He has one of those desks with a rolly top, and in that square, shallow drawer on the right is a manila envelope labeled TAX PAPERS with naked pictures of all of them. I open it only because I know he would never name an envelope tax papers; he would have separate ones for the different kinds of receipts and forms. The photos hes taken of me are still coiled inside his camera. At the time, hed pretended it was a very spontaneous thing to do. I wonder why he thought he had to lie. Knowing what it was actually for would have made me want to do it more. I would have tried a lot harder.

I study their loose-limbed, puppyish bodies like flash cards. Is the margarine blonde with Satan eyes the one who got sick from the smell of blown-out candles? This one, freckles the color of fresh dirt sprayed across the bridge of her nose, shes the slow eater. Or she always left really long messages on his machine and used up the tape. Who could have raised show dogs and given him the clap? I hope its the expensive one with the cheekbones, whos making a kiss-face.

Holly is the only one I know for definite; shes dangerous-looking with a muscly body, one arm a shade paler and thinner than the other. Shes the worst kind of pretty: classically, mathematically gorgeous. Im surprised to find that shes quite covered in long, white scars. Somehow Id imagined the bones smashing inside her without any damage to the surface, but I guess there had to be. I picture the two of them standing on a bleached wooden pier, his arm wrapped around her, a choppy, salted wind ruffling her fawn-colored hair. He reaches under her sweater and traces his blunt fingers along those shiny ridges, the skin there impossibly silky. She is herself, unmistakably.

I teach myself to smile in a more teeth-baring way, showing off the little space between the two in front. I buy sunglasses, sign up for a night class in life drawing, and start to wear black. I laugh with my head flung back, saying ha-ha-ha instead of making suction sounds.

Why have you started dressing like a Mafia widow?

I dont know what youre talking about.

I pencil in the mole beneath my left eye and sign up for two more classes: karate and Italian.

I wear my own clothes to work, but with a vest on top that has the Superman logo on it. Its meant to mean SuperCourier.

This is probably too many classes now, he says when I deliver my karate uniform to the house. Why didnt you just have them mail it?

Its cheaper this way. I used the employee discount. He makes a face at my motorcycle.

Can you get my sandwich from the fridge? I say.

He sighs and goes inside. I did have the uniform mailed to me, but then I took it into work and logged it as a delivery. Its the best way of announcing things. He comes back out and gives me the sandwich.

This is very sticky, he says. What is it?

Bread and honey. I sit on my bike and eat while he paces around me.

Hows the art class, any good?

Its OK. I sit next to an old lady who draws only butt cheeks, week after week.

What if the model is facing her?

She still draws their butt cheeks.

He stops pacing. Its very grown-up, the way hes wearing socks and shoes even though its Saturday morning and hes just at home.

I dont get it, he says. I mean, if youre going to sacrifice three evenings a week, you might as well take a real course, get a degree.

I have a degree, I remind him.

He nods primly at the giant S on my chest. I look around for my clipboard.

I didnt even know you wanted to be an artist, he says, exasperated. How are you planning to manage all these classes?

Ill be fine, I tell him. Sign here, please.

He does something with stocks and bonds, and gets a haircut every three weeks. He drinks bourbon from a glass instead of from the bottle. He wears the kind of shoes that need to be polished. Not a practicing Catholic, just chronic. Sleeps fetal. Hes not my type but he has large, dry hands and a complicated nose with a deep dent near the top. I always think you can tell what someone is like in bed from the shape of his nose. And a knobbly Adams apple, the white-knuckle kind you can see rise and fall.