The Transformation of Things by Jillian Cantor

hadn’t said a word to me about work, or about anything, for that matter.
    “So tell me, how are you handling things?” Kelly asked, plunking the plate of Jelly Krimpets down in front of me. I told her about Lisa coming over with the pineapple upside-down cake and booting me out of my life. She chewed on her Jelly Krimpet and nodded. “Bitches,” she said. She waved her hand. “You’re better off without them.” I tried to ignore the I-told-you-so look she flashed at me, something almost close to a smirk. “So what are you going to do now?”
    “Kat got me a little freelance work.” I left out what it was so she wouldn’t roll her eyes or laugh at me, or point out what I already knew, that it was really just glorified typing.
    “So you want to go back to work?” She paused. “That’s not what I expected.”
    “You were the one who asked if I was going back to work,” I pointed out, which was typical. I could never win with Kelly. “What did you expect?”
    “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I thought you might have a baby.”
    I didn’t say anything for a minute or so, and then I said, “Well, anyway.” I stared at the Tastykakes longingly, trying to mentally calculate how long it had been since I’d eaten something like that. Two years. Maybe three. “This would be the worst possible time for us to have a baby.”
    Kelly nodded. “There’s never really a good time,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to jump in and do it.” She paused. “Like Dave always says, ‘Shit happens, but flowers grow really well in shit.’”
    “Is that like some kind of a landscaping joke?” I asked,finally picking up the Jelly Krimpet and stuffing it in my mouth, letting the sweet, sweet jelly dull her questions. Why had I thought it would be a good idea to come over here?
    “And what happened to your novel?” she drilled.
    I finished chewing and shrugged. I didn’t want to tell her the truth, that I’d never even gotten past the first chapter before I’d tucked it away in a drawer, and that I rarely ever thought about taking it out again. “How’s your project coming?” I asked, wanting to change the subject, to take the heat off me.
    “Good,” she said. “I’m doing flowers, for a calendar.”
    I looked around at Kelly’s photos—the one aspect of her house that made it seem grown up—the black-and-white landscapes on the walls. I examined the one that hung by the fridge, a close-up of a saguaro cactus from a trip they’d taken to Arizona the year before. It was so close that the individual needles looked like fingers, reaching out for something. Her photos really were beautiful, and it amazed me that somehow she managed it all: mom, wife, artist.
    “Oh, by the way, I talked to Dad. He and Sharon are coming for Thanksgiving.” I thought about the last time I saw my father and Sharon, last Passover. We’d hardly said two words to each other the whole night. Part of it was because he had never shown anything but disappointment for me, and the other part was Sharon, who was either unable or unwilling to shut up. She’d barely step foot inside Kelly’s house before she’d be criticizing everything and everyone in her path. But even worse, she pretended to do it in a nice enough way, as if she was actually paying us some kind of backward compliment.
    Last Passover, she’d started in with “The dinner lookslovely, Kel.” She’d wrinkled her long, pointy nose. “Now if only you could’ve dressed up a little more. Put on some makeup. You’re too pale without it. And Jenny, oy God, you’re too thin. Look at that waistline, Donny. You need to borrow a little from the middle of your sister, eh?” My dad—Don—to everyone but her—looked away, uncomfortable, not wanting to meet our gazes or stare at our waistlines either.
    Dave had come up behind Kelly and put his arms around her. “Her middle is perfect. You can’t have any.” He looked at me and laughed, while Kelly