“I’ve called you ten times today and nothing.” She was still shouting. “But I call from my husband’s phone and you pick right up? What kind of lawyer screens their clients’ calls?”
“Vivienne?”
“Yes?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“You can’t do that.” Her tone was more plaintive now. Vivienne’s belligerent bark was, I’d learned, rather easily disarmed with nonreactivity.
“I can. And if you want my help, which believe me youdo,I suggest you go for a walk, get yourself calmed down.” My tone was icy but not angry. “Thenwaitfor me to call you back, which I will. As soon as I have a suitable opportunity. Now, good-bye.”
“You can’t just—”
I hung up just as Cleo reemerged at the top of the steps. Hardly down there for two seconds. And she looked … happy. She was beaming, in fact, as she paused to look down at her phone, typed out a quick text. When she’d tucked her phone back into her jacket pocket, she started down Christopher Street in the direction of her dorm, still smiling. I watched until she was gone, swallowed by the distance and the crowded sidewalk. While there I sat, alone in the gathering dark.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
IN RE XYTEK MARKETING, SALES PRACTICE AND PRODUCT LIABILITY LITIGATION, MDL NO. 4236
MASTER LONG FORM COMPLAINT & JURY DEMAND
COMES NOW Plaintiffs in this consolidated action, collectively, and by and through the Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel, who file this Master Long Form Complaint and Jury Demand (“Master Complaint”) against Defendants as an administrative device to set forth potential claims Plaintiffs, on their own behalf and/or on behalf of the estates of deceased persons and their beneficiaries, may assert against Defendants in this litigation. Plaintiffs in MDL No. 4236 bring and/or adopt this Master Complaint, and complain and allege on personal knowledge as to themselves, and on information and belief as to all other matters, as follows:
GENERAL ALLEGATIONS 1. This Master Complaint sets forth facts and allegations common to those Plaintiffs whose claims relating to Xytek products have been filed in this multidistrict litigation. Plaintiffs seek compensatory and punitive damages, monetary restitution, and all other available remedies as a result of injuries caused by Defendants’ defective Xytek products. Plaintiffs claim and allege that their damages and injuries, specifically to their infants in gestation, are a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ negligent, intentional, and wrongful acts, omissions, and conduct regarding Defendants’ design, development, formulation, manufacture, testing, packaging, labeling, promotion of Xytek for use in pregnant patients.
Cleo
FOUR HOURS GONE
My hands are shaking as I scroll through my mom’s online dating profile, unable to process what I’m seeing.Mymom.Thesemen. There are chats on one side of the screen—with twelve different guys.Twelve.Peter, Matt, Oscar, the list goes on. Without opening them, I can see the beginnings of the conversations.
“Hi, how have you …”
“Hi! How’s your week?”
“So great to meet you. So you’re a lawyer …”
“Coffee was fun yesterday. Would love to do it again.”
Again?My mom hasmetsome of these people? My dad might stray … I could see that. He’s distractible that way, and a guy. Not that that would make it okay, obviously. But my mom would never cede an inch of her moral high ground by cheating. And now she’s hooking up with random strangers from the—now she’s hooking up? I try to process this, but I really can’t imagine it. She’s so … not sexual.
Except there it is, in black and white. Her words. Those random men. It’s like the opposite of her. She’d had the audacity to judgemewhen I told her I had sex with Charlie? Is she seriously this much of a hypocrite?
I click the first chat at the top. There are a handful of messages back and forth with this Oscar guy, beginning with my mom’s opening line:Is that picture from Iceland? I recognize that—VikBeach.I was eleven when we traveled to Iceland. My dad was filming there on the black sand. I feel a pang of betrayal, like my mom had handed this rando a piece of my childhood.
It is Vik!!
I click on his profile:42. Leo. Active. Lawyer.The profile image is of a dark-haired man with intense deep-set eyes, looking back over his shoulder as he heads toward the setting sun, a surfboard under his arm. Not bad. I click on the next picture—the Oscar guy is now in a suit, cheek-to-cheek with a little girl in a frilly dress at a wedding or something. Except her face is blacked out, scribbled over as if with a marker. It’s creepy as hell. The one after that is of him shirtless in front of a barbecue, holding tongs in one hand and a beer in the other, decent arms but a noticeable hint of a belly. Hard to believe it’s the same guy with the surfboard.
This is my cell. Would it be better to text?is the last chat message from my mom.
