Property: A Collection. Lionel Shriver

that expensive, it’s the gesture. Thinking of me, even when I’m not there, and making a good guess as to what I might like. She’s never seemed wary or territorial, despite the fact that you and I are so close. Which is pretty amazing, actually.”

      Throughout this panegyric touting the many fine qualities of his wife-to-be, Baba looked only the more miserable.

      “Or we used to be close,” Jillian added, sitting back.

      “See?” Baba pounced. “That’s what I mean. That kind of cutting aside, which says it all.”

      “Oh, all what? I’m very, very glad you’ve found someone. I don’t know how to spell it out more plainly. Because what I appreciate most about Paige is that she loves you. It’s obvious every time she looks at you. In fact, there are times she can’t even bear to look at you, because it’s too much, it makes her feel too much. Why wouldn’t I want that for you?”

      “That’s what I ask myself,” Baba said.

      “I’m sorry if I didn’t burst into tears of joy, or whatever you hoped for when you told me. You seemed in a terrible frame of mind, like someone had died or something, and I was trying to understand why, not ‘talk you out of’ getting married.”

      Yet the further she extolled his fiancée’s merits, the more Jillian was reminded of that feeling in the presence of a woman who detested her: that no matter what she said, she was digging her own grave.

      ONCE BACK HOME, Jillian showered and put her feet up with a glass of wine in the glow of the chandelier. She considered whether the problem wasn’t talk itself, with its deserved reputation as cheap. She could blah-blah herself blue in the face, and Baba would never be sure that she wasn’t merely mouthing what he wanted to hear. That very afternoon, hadn’t Jillian sung the praises of the gesture, which spoke so much more forcefully than words? Perhaps in this case a gesture of larger proportions than a jar of fig preserves.

      When the ideal course of action presented itself, she felt a twinge, like a stitch in the side—which is how she could tell it was right. A grand gesture should cost you. The agonizing back and forth on a second glass of Chablis was self-theater. She had already made up her mind, and by the third glass had moved from fraudulent indecision to the early stages of mourning. Baba would believe that she was thrilled he was marrying Paige Myer only when he saw how much she was willing to surrender to make the point.

      PACKAGING UP THAT weekend was anxiety provoking, and required half a roll of six-foot Bubble Wrap and a full roll of packing tape. When tennis was rained out that Monday, Jillian was relieved; neither her game nor her friendship with Baba was going to settle until her alleged antagonism toward his impending nuptials was conclusively demonstrated to be all in his head. Though she didn’t want him to feel ashamed of himself. She wanted him to be touched. Cancel that; she wanted them both to be touched.

      On Tuesday, the weather cleared. After the Chevaliers’ gardener, Lance, had finished for the day, he generously agreed to provide the services of his van. So extravagantly had Jillian wrapped her offering that, even with both of them manipulating the monster wad of pillowy plastic, it barely fit through the back doors. Lance drove, while she stayed in back to ensure their cargo didn’t rock, and he was equally sweet about helping her unload. “I didn’t go to this much trouble for me and my wife’s twenty-fifth!” he said, pulling on the bundle’s back end. “That sixty-inch Sony flat screen was a box of safety matches in comparison. Whoever these folks are, sweetie, you sure must like ’em.”

      “Yeah, that’s the message, all right,” Jillian said. It wasn’t all that heavy with the two of them, but it was unwieldy, and got stuck again as she shoved it from behind. “Careful!” she cried. “Don’t put any pressure on it. Let’s just ease it back and forth.”

      She hadn’t given Baba a heads-up about her visit, lest he be driven to “protect” his fiancée from her fearsome disapproval. Besides which, you didn’t give fair warning about a surprise; that was what made it a surprise. It was barely seven thirty p.m., still light, and Baba’s Escort was in the drive.

      “Where you wanna carry this, missy?” Lance asked, once the bundle had cleared the van’s doors.

      Dismally, Jillian appraised the A-frame’s entrance. If her delivery jammed between the roof and floor of the van, it wasn’t going to fit through the front door. “I’m afraid that to get it inside, I’ll have to unwind the outside layers. If you keep it steady upright, I’ll start slicing tape. Fortunately, I brought an X-Acto knife.”

      This was poor dramatics. She had hoped to make the present look less like a lifetime supply of plastic wrap by belting it with the red ribbon tucked in her shorts pocket. But it was too late for the flourish, because their commotion had already drawn Baba to the door.

      In the middle of his front lawn, she was in the midst of walking another layer off the wad, which with all the packaging stood eight feet tall. To keep from having to feed the accumulating Bubble Wrap between Lance and the bale, she’d sliced off a couple of sections, now fluffing in the breeze and trashing up the yard. As Baba emerged onto the porch, she had to chase after one of the rectangles to keep it from blowing away.

      “What’s this about?” he asked, with an expression she couldn’t read. If he knew what the object was, he gave no indication, but he might readily have guessed had he applied himself.

      She smiled shyly, arms full of plastic. “It’s your wedding present. I think I can get it through the door now. Want to help?”

      The two men helped negotiate the slimmer but more fragile bundle, while Jillian, who was familiar with which bumps were the most delicate, directed its orientation. Once in the living room, she had them rest it on one side so that she could go at the bottom with the X-Acto knife, cutting away the packaging until she revealed the metal base. She’d been so busy with the logistics that it was only then that she looked up to meet Baba’s gaze, though he had to have surmised some time before what they were unwrapping. His smile was warm enough, but also colored by a wan quality.

      “Are you sure you want to give this away?” he asked quietly.

      “To just anybody, no. To you—to you and Paige—sure as shootin’.”

      “But that thing took you six months.”

      “Longer. But if it didn’t mean anything to me, it wouldn’t be a good present.”

      They raised the new addition to Weston Babansky’s already eclectic decor to its upright position, and with the base unpacked it was stable. Jillian assured Lance that she could take it from here, thanked him effusively, and wished him good-night. Yet it was several more minutes before Paige finally emerged from downstairs, carrying a basket of clean laundry. Had Jillian heard visitors muffling overhead, while the scraping of an obscure object penetrated the ceiling of her utility room, curiosity would have gotten the better of her sooner. Some women had a vigilant relationship to a load in the dryer.

      “Jillian!” Paige’s face quivered briefly, as if she were about to sneeze. “What on earth? Is this that—chandelier thing?”

      “I was thinking”—Jillian had unwound the big sheet now, and was down to snipping the smaller squares cushioning each individual assemblage—“that during the party on the night of the wedding, it would be nice to have a centerpiece. Which also provides romantic, indirect lighting.”

      “So this is a loaner?” Most people were a little graceless or flustered when on the receiving end of extreme generosity, and she wouldn’t have meant to sound so hopeful.

      “No, no,” Jillian corrected. “That would make for a pretty feeble wedding present. It’s yours, and the welds are solid. As your grandchildren will discover, should you choose to go that direction.”

      Insofar as Jillian had envisioned this presentation, she’d imagined a bit more hubbub, especially since Paige had never seen the “chandelier thing” before. But the betrothed couple was unnervingly muted, so that when Paige offered a cup of tea,