Ellen and I sat at the kitchen table and looked through the coupons that came in the Sunday paper. A week had gone by and the fig was still taking up all that space. The coupons were a weekly ritual. Ellen needed to see what kinds of promotions, contests and recipes the competition was sponsoring.

I grasped the scissors in my left hand and slowly flipped the pages with my right. While I was at it, I clipped coupons for our weekly shopping. "Here's the Almond Board." I gently tossed the page to Ellen's side of the table. It fluttered down like a butterfly.

"Look at that. Those almond guys get all of the budget. They're giving away a car! Can you believe? A car for some easy baking recipe or a salad or something. Everyone knows how easy it is to cook with almonds." She glared at the coupon with envy. "You know, somebody should win a car for coming up with a recipe for figs! But what do we have to give away? An entertainment center! People don't want to win furniture is what I told them, but Shirley got the last vote, didn't she?"

I nodded.

Ellen was a very competitive person and took pride in her work. She was already competing against the director of advertising, Shirley Rubicam. Shirley had the ear of the president, and Ellen didn't like it much. She was accustomed to being the favorite daughter of the Apple Board, but in Dinuba, everything was different.

"She's already going after my budget, would you believe?" Ellen started rubbing her finger over her lips, usually a sign that she was nervous. She put the almond coupon in her briefcase. She looked pretty to me, her hair smooth and shiny, a new color of brown that almost matched her briefcase. Her hands were so small and smooth, like a child's hands.

"It's always the same with those advertising types, anyway," she said. "They get all the glory and the budget to spend on a mistrusted form of communication. Who trusts advertising, right? Not me and not you. You trust the food column in the paper or a contest or a cute costumed spokesman handing out recipe cards. That's what moves the product."

In Walla Walla, I liked to hear Ellen talk about her job. Every night after she got home from work, we'd sit in our backyard, I'd bring her a glass of iced tea and she'd tell me the day's events. Sometimes she'd call me at home in the middle of the day if something especially juicy happened. In our five years of marriage, we had developed a code for talking on the phone about someone without them knowing it. But in Dinuba, she was paranoid someone would still know what we were talking about. She just wasn't comfortable yet.

Ellen slammed her briefcase shut and got that determined look, where she makes her lips stiff and opens her mouth a little, showing the clenched teeth underneath. "You know what, Frank? I'm just going to start sewing on this thing myself. I took lots of home ec., remember?"

I didn't really think that was a good idea, but she started rummaging through the boxes I hadn't bothered to unpack yet. It was my job, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ellen got to it before I did.

I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. When we moved to Dinuba, I'd started drinking canned beer. In Walla Walla, I would go out for beer with my friends from the shop or invite them over for bottles of Red Hook. We would talk about wood grains and new tools and the price so-and-so got on his bookshelves at the campus sell-off. Here, I made the decision to go with cans so they would take less space in the garbage can. Bottles you can't smash.

Ellen found a small sewing kit and walked over to the costume, now permanently stored in the middle of the living room where my telescope used to be. She hugged it to her, gently, until it lay across her lap. The thing covered her whole body it was so large. You could only see her head and her hands busy opening the sewing kit. The costume seemed to just swallow up Ellen.

"If I get this thing done it's going to be the creme of the boards." Ellen had a habit of taking a pick to her hair and fluffing it up. Pick, pick, pick. That was one good thing about Dinuba: her hair did get big in this town. The weather in Walla Walla just didn't agree with it; bogged it down, she'd say, made it into more of a Dolly Madison than a Dolly Parton.

"Hair's looking nice, Ellen."

"Well, aren't you the sweetest."

I knew that the job really was the best thing for both of us. It was progress, but what with the fig costume and Shirley Rubicam and my loneliness, things just felt a little shaky in our crowded one bedroom apartment.

The dinner party was slated to begin at 7:00. Ellen had decided to invite Shirley Rubicam and her husband, Mike, over to improve their working relationship. It was important that the advertising and promotions directors work together, and Ellen was giving it her best shot.

She had been in the kitchen all day, preparing the dinner, one item at a time. I had been watching fishing shows and football--there was nothing else on. I would also watch her periodically, through the hole between the cabinets and the counter. She hummed "Amazing Grace" to herself and filled the room with a holiness that drowned out the TV.

I looked over at the costume, lying like an empty shell on our living room floor. Since she started sewing on the costume last week, it looked worse. It was still unfinished, and the new material Ellen had sewn on just didn't match up with the rest. I was about ready to tell her to give it up, but I didn't know how she'd take it.

She looked out from the kitchen, saw me staring at the costume where my telescope once was and said, "I just need a thimble is all I need."

"I think you just need to hire another tailor." Something about Dinuba made me into more of a smart ass. I'm sure Ellen didn't appreciate it much.

"Do you know how hard it is to find a good tailor in Dinuba? Seven advisory boards put too much of a drain on the tailor population, with all the costumes and banners and flags and such. That's why that little shrimp was trying to get away with highway robbery, and I'm not going to be reduced to that level."

"So you're reduced to the level of seamstress when you can't sew?"

"You know, you've been nothing but a big ball of negative energy since we got here. You need an activity. Some friends."

"I had friends."

Ellen kept cooking, and I didn't want to get into a fight, especially before the dinner party.

I was not looking forward to it, even though I had been lonely since I got here. I thought it was silly to host people you didn't even like and to have a dinner party in an apartment hardly big enough for us. My mother always said dinner parties are something you just don't do if you're in a small apartment with no formal dining room.

Ellen was trying like hell, though, to make a good impression. She decided to cook everything herself, showing her culinary skills and resourcefulness by using all seven products promoted by the advisory boards of Dinuba. The fig recipe she created at home and planned on using in an upcoming press kit.

I started to watch Ellen again. She was carefully measuring out rice. She'd add a little, take a little away. It was fascinating to watch. Calming.

She noticed I was looking at her.

"Frank, I want to talk you about something."

"OK."

"I don't want you to make a big deal about it, but if no one notices how the recipes use all the products, could you say something? You know, bring attention to it without making too big a deal of it?"

"Sure, I could do that."

"Well, it's getting late. Maybe you should move that out now."

Ellen wanted me to hide the costume in the back of our station wagon. She had a quilt to cover it with, so Shirley and Mike couldn't catch a glimpse.

"Looks like it will rain, you know," I said.

"Don't keep pressing me on that one, Frank. It won't rain. Trust me."

"Well, I guess it's not really my telescope anyway to worry about. I didn't pay for it."

"Don't be silly. I bought it for you. Now do me a favor and take out the costume. Could you just help? I'm nervous."

I picked up the costume and the quilt. The tailor really should have made it with handles. I felt bad about compounding Ellen's stress. She didn't deserve it with Shirley coming over and all.

I walked down the stairs and out toward the car. The air smelled like blossoms for a second, some foreign California smell that I was becoming used to. That was the first scent I could remember associating with Dinuba. I unlatched our trunk, wrapped the costume in the quilt and stuffed it in, head first. I was probably being a little rough. Anxiously I scanned the apartment complex, afraid that someone would see and think I was hiding a body.

I walked back inside and said, "Don't forget to bring in that quilt. It belonged to my mother."

"Of course it belonged to your mother. Who else sews quilts anymore anyway?"

I just hoped the evening would go by quickly. Back in Walla Walla, I tried to keep my appearances at Ellen's company functions to a minimum. Maybe Christmas, summer picnic. Sometimes I would go with her on business trips if she was going alone. The annual Betty Crocker Pie Bake Off in Chicago was a favorite. We got to stay in a nice hotel and eat out every night. Ellen always organized a separate apple bake off with a new Sears oven as the winning prize. It was one of her most successful programs. I doubted we would be going back there again. Who makes fig pie?

"Shirley's husband collects rocks. Maybe you should talk to him a little about it. It might be a good hobby for you," she said.

"I don't like rocks."

"Well, you like astronomy and isn't that just big rocks up in the sky?"

"That's different."

"It's all a matter of context." Ellen was busy filling a dish with the almonds for the chicken and almond rice casserole. "I just thought it might be nice if you could make friends with him. Heaven knows my relationship with Shirley could be improved. I don't trust her. Just a mean woman."

Ellen had been devoting herself to making sure this dinner went off without a hitch. Earlier in the week, she bought a new dress for herself and a new dinner jacket for me. I tried to help, too. I moved my collection of wood working magazines to the linen closet. I pulled out any embarrassing prescriptions from the medicine cabinet. I watched the news all week to have something to talk about.

Shirley and Mike arrived right on time, bearing a bottle of White Zinfandel from a vineyard outside Dinuba. Ellen had warned me about Shirley, but I wasn't really prepared. She was afflicted with some kind of thyroid condition that made her eyes bug out like a cartoon character's. They looked like they were going to pop right out of her head at any moment. It scared me a little bit, but I couldn't take my eyes off of her. It was like being drawn to a car wreck. The rest of her was attractive enough. She supposedly was a work-out freak and her body was tight and trim and looked good in her red dress.

Mike seemed like a decent person. He carried in the wine with a big bow on the label, shook my hand, and furiously chewed a piece of gum. His hands were clean and soft. Wood would tear them apart. Ellen told me he was a purchasing director for a steel manufacturer in town. Sounded boring to me, but she said he made good money.

"What a nice complex this is, Ellen," Shirley said. She had a nice smile, too, if you could avoid those eyes.

"Thanks. We'll probably move into a house after we get settled here. You know, check out the neighborhoods."

That was the first I had heard about a house.

"What wonderful furniture you have. Isn't it nice, Mike?" Shirley walked over to a bookshelf and ran her finger down its side.

Mike took a look. "Yep, it's nice."

At this, Ellen brightened. "Well, Frank made all of this furniture. He's quite good with wood." We all sat down in the living room.

"Really," Shirley said. I swear she gave me a wink. "Frank, what exactly is it that you do?"

"Well, I usually do wood working, like Ellen said. I haven't really gotten settled here yet."

She turned to her husband. "Does the shop ever need you to buy furniture like this? Maybe Frank could make something for you."

"Well, we're a steel plant so I don't know."

The room settled into a small silence at Mike's comment. I didn't think he was the type to humor people.

I looked outside to check for rain.

"Well, something smells good, Ellen," Shirley said.

"Oh, thank you. I hope you like chicken."

"You know, I can't boil water. It's funny I would end up in food advertising, isn't it? Mike does all the cooking. You know, he used to be a chef of sorts. Tell them, honey."

Mike took the gum out of his mouth and placed it in its wrapper. He gave it to Shirley and she put it in her purse. "Well, I used to work at the Campbell's plant. Up in Fresno? I was in new soup flavor development."

"Really!" Ellen said.

"Yeah, you know the cheddar and beef? I was on the team that designed that one." Mike took another piece of gum out of his pocket.

"He really liked it there until they moved him to the Healthy Choice division. You know that's just like a bureaucracy, wait until somebody's good at something and then move him right out of there," Shirley said.

"That's the Peter Principle." I remembered this from sociology.

"The what?" Shirley closed those eyes of hers. "Are you being coy?"

"No, that's really a principle they have. Sociology." I sat back in my chair. We all looked at each other.

"So, Mike, you don't work there anymore, right?" Ellen asked.

"No, once I got to Healthy Choice, it was too hard coming up with anything. You were really limited. No salt, low fat, guidelines everywhere. I walked out when they told me I couldn't use pepper. Pepper! Can you believe it. They said in watery soups pepper looked like bugs and people would send it back. So I quit." He put his hands in his lap.

"Well, how about some beer?" I said. "Or Ellen, didn't you make some sangria or something?"

"Of course. Would you like some sangria? I made it especially with Kiwi's, floating on the top."

I decided to help Ellen with the drinks to get away from those two. After we cleared the living room, I gestured to Ellen by sticking my eyes out like Shirley's. I could tell Ellen liked it even though she was nervous Shirley could see. It was a joke between us.

We brought out four drinks in the new glasses Ellen had bought at the Pier 1.

"So, Frank, you've been a kept man all this time? Is that what you're telling me?" Shirley looked right at me with those eyes.

Ellen piped up. "Well, it takes a while to get back into wood working. You need to find a shop." She traced her lips with her finger.

"So you have all this time to devote to Ellen?" She pivoted and shot Ellen a monstrous wink. "You're a lucky woman."

"I wish I didn't have to go to work every day," Mike said. "It'd be nice."

Ellen got up to get dinner ready. I felt uncomfortable; I really did. "So Mike, I hear you collect rocks?" I was hoping Ellen could hear me ask him about his dumb rocks. He probably collected rocks because they couldn't remind him of his wife and her eyes sticking out like a cartoon villain.

"Oh, yeah. Shirley, do you tell everyone about that?"

Shirley shrugged.

"I dabble in it you know. Dinuba's a good place for it. Lots of interesting rocks around here."

"That's interesting." I said. What could you say?

Ellen came back at the tail end of Mike's description. "You know Frank likes astronomy." She left out the part about stars being rocks in the sky.

"Really, Frank?" Shirley said.

"Maybe we should go out after dinner and take a look. If you all are interested." I stopped to scan their faces stopping with Ellen's. "That is, if it doesn't rain."

Soon Ellen ushered us all into dinner. Lucky me, I sat across from Shirley. Ellen had outdone herself. There were placemats and matching cloth napkins, a cute little butter dish, yellow stick-in appendages for the corn on the cob, a local favorite. And there they were, all seven advisory board foods one way or another. They kind of loaded up the meal with fruit, but I wouldn't have told Ellen that. Five a day and all that anyway. There were almonds in the chicken, kiwi in the sangria and jicama in the tossed green.

I decided to get the conversation going. "Did you hear about the new castration law?"

Shirley hurumphed and said, "It's about time if you ask me."

"What is this?" Mike asked.

"Well, the state can now impose castration on repeat child molesters. Personally, I think it's wrong. That's not really the place for government, you know?" I said, feeling my face get red. "I mean, it shouldn't be within their jurisdiction is what I meant."

"Don't tell me you're one of those soft-on-crime types?" Shirley asked. "A child molester? You're defending a child molester? They forfeit all rights in my opinion."

Ellen had stopped eating her casserole.

"Well, maybe they should just lock them up for life. Do you really want them back on the street anyway?" I asked.

"They won't be a menace without those hormones. Makes men crazy."

"I just think it's--what's that phrase? Cruel and unusual punishment. Haven't you ever neutered a cat? It changes their whole personality. And what if someone were falsely convicted and then got castrated? There's no way to put them back on."

Ellen looked absolutely horror-stricken. For a moment I forgot I was arguing with our guest, Ellen's peer. I guess I had a lot of opinions bottled up.

Mike cleared his throat. "He's got a good point there. I say lock the bastards up but don't do any invasive surgery."

Shirley glared at him. "Well, lucky thing for the children of this state that you two men are not on the California supreme court. They have decreed, let the castrations begin." She was the only one who laughed.

"Well," Ellen said, "leave room because I have a raisin-fig tapioca for dessert."

"Speaking of figs." Shirley folded her arms on the table. "I don't mean to bore the boys with shop talk, but what do you have planned for the rest of the year, Ellen? Where's that budget being spent? You've been so secretive."

Ellen weighed her options for a moment. "Well, I'm in the middle of a project. I'm having a fig costume done. Actually I was surprised you didn't have one already. I've been researching venues and promotions for appearances. We need to find an actor or somebody who is real personable. I was even thinking of going to the major markets and crashing in on the radio stations. It was a very successful program for the Apple Board."

Shirley squinted at Ellen, an act that reeled in Shirley's eyeballs until they looked almost normal. "Really? Doesn't the raisin board do that? You know the little dancing raisins? I thought they did that."

"Well, there's plenty of events and county fairs and the like to go around. It's a good program."

"Don't you think a giant fig is kind of gross looking? You know a big mass of brown? Kind of bad associations don't you think?" Shirley quit squinting and let her eyes pop out again.

I don't know why I had the urge to talk. "Yeah, it looks kind of obscene in a way. That's what I thought. Not cute like a giant apple coming to shake your hand."

Ellen dropped her napkin in her plate. She didn't look at me. "Well, we'll just have to see how obscene it looks when it's done."

We all nodded our heads. It looked like this was the time, a good chance to change the subject completely. They hadn't said anything yet about the dinner, about the almonds or the jicama even. It was a hard read did they notice and not want to say anything or did it just go right on by?

While I was thinking about how to bring it up, I noticed Shirley looking at me again. How could I forget those eyes, even for a moment? You had to feel sorry for the woman, but those eyes looked right into you with no possibility of defense.

I decided to go ahead and try it, since she was looking at me anyway. "Ellen, you sure did a great job of incorporating all the Dinuba foods."

Shirley scrunched up her eyebrows for a second, making one long streak of brow and then burst out with a laugh. "Well, isn't that cute. Did you hear that, Mike?" He looked up from his food. "Ellen went to all the trouble to include the Dinuba foods in this dinner and we didn't even notice. I guess you had a lot of time up there in Walla Walla to do things like this. That's so domestic. Do you sew, too?"

Ellen didn't look like I expected her to. She looked hurt, no shred of that competitive spirit. "No. I don't sew. Not really."