The Suite Adult Life

Thanksgiving (2.2)

Thanksgiving came and went without a hitch. It was nice and quiet just as promised. The grandparents fawned over their grandchildren for most of the day and weekend. Going home to a cold and dark apartment after spending many days and nights in the warm glow of a meticulously festively decorated apartment brought its own kind of depression. Cody called out "Honey! I'm home!" more than a few times. Work was not fulfilling him, but his palms itched for his camera. He spent most of his time finding the hidden parts of the city. Like the old headstones that lined the riverbank. The ice and snow made it a little too precarious to be safe, but he was secretly addicted to the tiny adrenaline rushes.

Most of his assignments took him to war torn or politically charged areas. He covered terror attacks in France, police brutality in the South, and coup d'etats in Brazil, just to name a few. One time, when he was in Iraq, he thought he was going to lose his hearing in one ear after being so close to a mortar going off. The ringing was oddly comforting. He had been told that he could find the picture within the photo. Whatever that meant. His editor liked his work because little editing needed to be done in post. Cody had a habit of getting mad if someone worked on a photo of his without approval.

He had had a showing of work almost once a year in galleries across the city. He even had an agent. Whatever that meant. She would call him up out of the blue asking him if he had any proofs he was willing to part with to be sold. He would send her whatever he was comfortable with showing. She liked that he was willing to part with so much that she could pick and choose. The last time she called she said she wanted something more 'artistic'. The world was moving on and current event poignant images weren't holding the same weight as they used to. Cody scoffed at her insolence. "People want fantasy. They want romance. They want to escape this world," she told him. She rubbed his ego by saying that he could make the same impact as he did with his journalism in the creative sphere. The same way people could place themselves in his scenes of strife, she had no doubt he could transport them to other worlds. So that's where he found himself in the interim. Trying to find the magic in the mundane. The money would be nice as well.

Cody had asked Jackson if he could be the event photographer. He could keep his face hidden behind his equipment and have an excuse not to talk to people. Not really. Predictably, his brother's husband shut him down. "You will dress in the way your fashion critic told you to, you will show up, you will talk to people, and you will have a good time."

"Oh is that all?" Cody responded sarcastically.

And that was how he ended up in a rented event space with an open bar and a bartender who poured generously. He had arrived with Zack and Jackson because Zack forbade him from coming on his bike and Jackson had hired a limo. The ostentatiousness made the twins cringe. But this was Jackson' event and night. They shared a silent message to not cause him any trouble.

The first part of the night was spent with everyone trying to guess which one was which. Even though these people grew up with them, had spent the following years hanging out with them, had gone to Zack and Jackson' wedding or Cody's gallery openings, and Cody was taller with black hair! This was the painful part about being a twin. No matter how different your personalities and activities may be, you were still relegated to being one side of the same coin.

He watched Zack and Jackson dance out of the corner of his eye. Raising a glass in greeting and recognition to those who waved at him. He stood with his back straight when a certain raven haired princess approached his bartop table. "London," he said curtly.

"Hi Cody." She said a tad remorsefully. London was pretty in high school, but as an adult? Total knockout. Her fashion sense was on point as ever, her hair perfectly coiffed, but she wasn't as glitzed out as she used to be. He heard from Zack that she ended up rejecting her father's plan for her, causing her to be cut off financially from her family, and was currently in residency for pediatric surgery. She was smarter than he ever gave her credit for but he was glad to hear she was doing something meaningful with her life.