Page 26 of Something New

"You don't know what normal people do. It's not bad for me to party with my friends on the weekends. Especially when I do work at the same time. I keep up with a life and school. You guys are too hard on me."

"You were doing so good after the accident, Sadie. You were happy."

"It wasn't that I was happy. I was just maybe up a little earlier in the morning. That's when I thought I might start babysitting for that little boy."

"Why aren't you?"

"I don't know. He never called me back."

"If it helps you to work with kids, you should think about doing that. Maybe you could switch your major to teaching, or start taking photographs of kids."

I let out a humorless laugh. "I'm not doing that. I took these photos of that little boy and heard nothing. I edited and printed them. It's the first time I've ever done that for someone, and nothing. Not so much as a thank you."

"Are you saying you took pictures of that little Kennedy boy? The one you babysat? You did a photo shoot of him?"

"Yes, and then I edited the photos and had them printed. I loved them, and I liked that little boy. I went to a lot of trouble, and then I gave them to him a week ago, and nothing. Like I said, not so much as a thank you."

"Maybe he didn't get them. Maybe you didn't send them to the right place."

"I have his address. I dropped them off myself."

"I don't know what to tell you, Sadie. Just because one person doesn't react a certain way to your photographs doesn't mean you should give up."

"I'm not giving up on photography," I assured him. "I'm just not interested in taking pictures of little kids."

"Is it because they weren't thankful? You can't base your decisions on stuff like that. People fail. All that matters is how you felt about the pictures. Did you have fun taking them? Did you think they came out good?"

"Yes, but I was just having fun with that little boy in general."

"And what happened?"

"I don't know what happened. He just never called me back. I didn't think I did anything wrong other than dreaming about him one time, I mean, I fell asleep on the job a little bit."

"See, Sadie, you can't do that, especially with them."

"No, it was fine. At least I thought it was."

"It probably wasn't. I'm sure that's why he didn't call back. You have to get normal rest and work normal business hours. You have to stop staying out all night. You're not going to find anything but trouble in the middle of the night. You slept in the driveway. You look like crap right now."

"Thanks, Salem. That's because you drug me to work after three hours of sleep."

"I made you come out here because I love you. You can't keep ending up in situations that have you sleeping in the driveway, Sadie. It's no wonder that guy didn't call you. That's how his wife died—drunk driving. His mom told us she had all sorts of drug problems."

We were silent for a long time after he said that. I already felt bad for my decisions last night. I didn't need to be reminded of how horrible I was.

"I knew his wife was in an accident, but until now, I didn't know any details."

"She got pregnant before they got married," he said.

"He told me that."

"His mom said he's trying to do better for the kid."

"Yeah, well I don't have anything to do with them, anyway."

"You seem like you're disappointed with that. I really think you should think about working with kids. I think it might be good for you. Phillip and Addie will be having babies soon enough. You need to think about becoming an aunt."

"Salem, you're being too serious about all this. I don't need to change my major. I went out and had some fun last night with my friends. That's pretty normal for a college student. I feel like that's a perfectly healthy thing for me to do. I even worked while I was there. I probably have a thousand dollars in photos on my cameras right now."