After dinner Trey offered to clean up the kitchen while I bathed Preston. He came into the bathroom as I was lifting her out of the tub. He wrapped a towel around her and said he would get her dressed for bed if I wanted to shower.
I showered and put my silk pajamas on that I had bought at Victoria's Secret. They were a dark maroon with pink piping. I loved wearing pajamas in the winter.
I combed out my damp hair deciding I was way past due for a trim. I would schedule an appointment before Thanksgiving. I found the slippers that Trey had bought for me in my closet and slipped them on.
Trey was in the rocker in Preston's room reading her a storybook. She was totally mesmerized by the story or maybe just by him. I know that I was.
He finished the story and gave her a kiss handing her off to me. I sat down wanting to nurse her a bit before bed. I undid my silk top and nestled her against me. She nursed for about twenty minutes and then fell asleep.
I placed her in her crib, tucking the blanket up around her. I kissed her soft baby cheek and turned out the light.
Trey was in the living room preparing for Monday Night Football. It was the pre-game show. I needed to tell him about Tristan.
"Trey, I need to talk to you about Tristan."
He muted the television and I took a place next to him on the couch.
"Oh yeah baby, "I'm sorry. I meant to ask you at dinner how it went with him at the club today."
"That part went fine. I'm pretty certain he is going to buy my share of the club. He and Gina are meeting with the accountant tomorrow morning to review the books."
"If anyone has a great sense of business it's Tristan," Trey replied. "I'm glad that it is going well but like I said Tylar, this is your decision. I'm not pressuring you one way or another."
"Trey this is something else altogether. I want you to watch something that happened today okay?"
I pulled up the video that Gina had sent to my phone of the conversation she had had with Libby. I had saved it to my videos. I hit the play button and handed it to Trey to watch.
I watched as Trey's expression went from impassive to disgust and then thoroughly pissed when Libby made the comments about me and the baby.
"That fucking bitch," he hissed, raking his hand through his hair.
"Did Gina show you the video from the closed circuit camera so you could see that I pushed her hand away?"
"No you see Trey, there is no closed circuit camera. Gina made that up to draw the truth out of Libby for this video."
I didn't tell Trey that I had asked to see it before I knew that Gina had made it all up.
"Pretty clever of Gina," he replied.
"So what now?"
"Now it's time to let Tristan in on the charade. If he gets mad at me for being the messenger then so be it. I can't know what I know right now and do nothing."
"I agree Trey, but how are you going to get to talk to him without Libby being around?"
"A video is worth a thousand words."
(Damn - that was the same thing Gina had said!)
Trey took my Blackberry and texted Tristan letting him know that it was him and not me and that a video was coming over that was for his eyes and ears only. He asked that Tristan confirm he was able to watch it in privacy.
A few minutes later my Blackberry beeped that I had a text message.
"It's from Tristan," he said.
"He texted me to let it roll. Here goes."
Trey forwarded the video to Tristan's phone. He looked sad after he had done it. It was the right thing to do under the circumstances. I believed that and Trey did as well. Neither of us liked the fact that Tristan would be hurt though.
I scooted over to be closer to Trey on the couch.
"Will Tristan be alright?"
"He will be hurt; he'll get over it."
"What kind of a person is Libby?"
"I think she's a very kinky girl Tylar. The kind you don't take home to mama."
"Trey - that's not funny. She has likely broken your brother's heart!"
"I really don't think so."
"How can you say that? He got engaged to her."
"Yeah, after knowing her for what two minutes? That's just not like Tristan at all. I think Tristan had a little bit of a mid-life crisis as his fortieth birthday approached and did one of those stupid things that guys sometimes do when that happens. Luckily it is easily remedied and put behind him. He will be fine."
"You better never do anything like that when yours hits," I warned him.
"Not a chance baby. Come on; let's go play."
CHAPTER 26
I was packed and ready to go waiting on Gina and Trey to arrive at the apartment. Trey had said that he needed to finish up some things at his office and would be working just until noon. Gina had said that she would be over right after she and Tristan had finished up at the accountant's with their 10 a.m. appointment. It was 1:30 p.m and neither one of them had crossed the threshold yet.
I checked the refrigerator. I had pumped four bottles for Preston out of my one and only milk-producing boob. I had pureed some more carrots, peas and something new which I hadn't introduced to her yet, green beans. I had pureed bananas and apricots and mixed them together.
Preston was in her playpen looking adorable in her red bib overalls and her red and white striped long sleeved polo shirt. I had put her hair into two tiny pigtails with little red bows. Her other bottom front middle tooth was breaking through. She was chewing anything rubbery like crazy. Right now she was slobbering on her rubber ducky bathtub toy that she had refused to part with after I had taken her out of her bath this morning. It was squeaking like crazy as she ravaged it with her emerging teeth.
Finally I heard commotion at the front door. Trey was first in with Gina tagging closely behind. They appeared to be arguing.
(Go figure!)
"All I'm saying counselor is that you might have wanted to pick a better time and a more compassionate method of dropping that little bomb on Tristan other than forwarding that video, which by the way he clearly knew I had produced."
"Gina I am not justifying my actions to you. He needed to know and now he does. Why are you upset?"
"Jesus Christ Trey, why the hell do you think? Your brother and I may yet end up as business partners. The night before we meet with the club's accountant you drop that video bombshell on him? The same video that I was responsible for recording. Talk about wanting to kill the messenger!"
"He needed to know. You must agree with that or you wouldn't have concocted that little 'entrapment' scheme of yours to get Libby on video admitting that she's a fucking freak!"
"Whoa, okay you two," I interrupted. "First of all, keep it down. You're upsetting Preston."
They both glanced over at Preston in her playpen chewing away on her rubber ducky as if she was oblivious to the whole thing. She must only get upset when Trey and I raise our voices with
each other
I decided.
"Okay," I continued, "Then you are upsetting me. What is going on? Is Tristan backing out of the deal?"
"Well no, he didn't say that," Gina replied. "He just showed up thirty minutes late at the accountants looking all bleary-eyed and unkempt. He snarled at me about my prowess at shadiness and referred to me as "the Shady Lady,' how coincidental is that?"
(Oh shit!)
"Oh Gina, I'm sorry, I told him you were considering changing the name of the club to 'The Shady Lady."
"That's certainly fitting," Trey chimed in. "I'm going in to pack. This conversation is over."
Trey departed the room mumbling something inaudible.
"You see? You see how he treats me Tylar? Why am I the bad guy in all of this?"
"Sit down Gina," I replied. "Let's talk."
She sat down crossing her legs and arms. Her body language definitely told me that she was not going to be receptive.
"First of all I don't think that you are the 'bad guy' in this and neither does Trey. In fact, when I told him that you had lied to Libby about having that closed circuit camera system at the club in order to get her to admit what she had done he said that you were pretty clever. Tristan did need to know what Libby was about. Now what happened this morning? Was Tristan actually angry with you?"
"Well I wouldn't say angry is the word, I mean it was really hard to tell because he was bleary-eyed like he hadn't slept and a bit disheveled. I can tell you this though Ty, he still looked hot."
She giggled then caught herself and went back to her wounded victim routine.
"Well he didn't yell at you or anything did he?"
"Oh no, nothing like that. It was just that when Rob was going over the figures with him it seemed like he was preoccupied and miserable."
"But Gina, certainly you of all people can understand that even more so because you actually had a long term relationship and then marriage to Ian. Seeing that video of Libby admitting that she wanted Trey had to be a shock for him. How was everything left about the club?"
"Well Tristan got copies of the financial information. He is flying back to Bristol tonight. He said that he would review everything and that he would be in touch with me early next week."
"Well then see? Once he comes to terms with the fact that this thing with Libby was nothing more than him acting out a mid-life crisis - at least that's what Trey thinks it was - he will shake it off. Trey said that Tristan has the Midas touch when it comes to managing businesses."
"He looks like he probably has the Midas touch with a lot of things."
Gina was giggling like a school girl. I suspected she was crushing a bit on Tristan.
"Hey," I said, "That still doesn't explain why you were so late in getting here."
She fidgeted a bit then said something about she had to go back to the condo to pack her stuff for her stay at our place with Preston. That was strange. Apparently it was none of my business. Perhaps Tristan had kept her longer than she cared to admit.
"Maybe if he has to come back next to week to finalize the papers he can stay here and have Thanksgiving dinner with Trey and me."
"You're not going to Bristol?" she asked.
"No Trey's parents alternate each year between their house and the Andrews. This year it's the Andrews turn and Trey and I decided not to make the trip. Are you going to Becky's for Thanksgiving this year?"
"I can't go this year on account of the club. That's a very busy three day weekend for us so I will be sticking around here."
"Well good. We will expect you here for Thanksgiving then."
Trey emerged packed and ready. I filled Gina in on the last minute instructions concerning the baby. She had picked Preston up out of the playpen and was holding her. I kissed my baby on the cheek and Trey did the same. I told Gina I would call her later.
Trey and I relaxed on the plane in first class. I hadn't been away with Trey since our honeymoon when I was so stressed about leaving the baby. Today I had no such trepidations. I was excited about going to this oral argument or whatever it was called. I needed Trey to clarify it for me.
"Trey I know you've tried to explain this whole process to me but start with the basics if you will and explain why this Motion has to be heard by a panel of judges from different districts. I mean I understand that your clients reside in different districts but why so many judges on a panel need to decide? Why do you only get a few minutes to state your case?"
Trey loved explaining the law to me; it was his life his passion. I got that. I loved hearing him talk about it because it was complicated and subjective and passionate - just like Trey.
"Okay baby well first of all I think you've already realized that multidistrict legislation or MDL as it is commonly referred to is a special federal procedure to speed the process of handling complex cases having multiple litigants from different jurisdictions."
I nodded wanting him to get to the part that I didn't already know.
"So in this particular case we have a product liability issue with mass torts and multiple plaintiffs from different states. Some of those states though neighboring fall under different federal court jurisdiction. The purpose is to get the federal judges on this panel - which represents different federal court appellate jurisdictions to agree that it is first of all the right thing to do and secondly to specify which federal jurisdiction should hear and rule on all of the pre-trial motions."
"Does this sort of thing happen a lot?" I asked.
"I wouldn't say that our firm runs into it that often but it's not all that rare either. The MDL statute came to be enacted in 1968. It was a belated response to a major price-fixing scandal that occurred at General Electric in 1961. As a result of GE's activities in 1961, the federal courts were flooded with criminal and related civil litigation. The statute was put into place to consolidate pre-trial proceedings and discovery under one court for efficiency and timeliness."