The day I met Levi Madison, I wanted to be good for him. I was working as a resident monitor at Serenity House, a group home for suicidal women and girls. My title silenced strangers with its gravity, but the job required little more than restocking a kitchenette with paper plates and taking notes in ten-minute increments. Had any patients deviated from their treatment plans? Had they brushed their teeth, combed their hair, and washed their dishes? Did movie screenings reduce stress and improve attention span? At the end of every shift, I sealed my answers in a manila envelope and filed them in the annex.
Movie screenings did not reduce stress. Sadie and Lucia had outvoted Rosemary’s Baby in favor of La dolce vita, and now Cecile was threatening to skip workgroup. I stood in the common area and spoke through the swinging doors to Cecile’s bedroom.
Where is Psycho? Cecile asked. Her rubber sandals pointed at me from beneath the wood panels. Are you afraid of me?
Of course not, I said. But I don’t know where it is. Have you checked the supply closet?
You do know, said Cecile. You stole my movie.
During my tenure at Serenity House, I had been accused of favoritism, insurance fraud, slowing the internet, and sabotaging the water heater. Management instructed me to document all allegations against staff, no matter how imaginary. In this case, Cecile was right. Why not watch something else? I asked. I meant for this to sound like a suggestion.
Cecile didn’t reply for some time, and when she did, her voice seemed low, as if it were coming from far away. Psycho makes me happy, she said. If I can’t enjoy myself here, will I enjoy myself anywhere?
Cecile watched Psycho weekly, and when she shrilled every note of the string section or mouthed each word of the psychiatrist’s speech in the precinct, it bothered other patients. Did it bother me, too? I wanted to tell Cecile that she hadn’t been admitted to Serenity House to enjoy herself, that sometimes she enjoyed herself too much. Instead, I promised to replace Psycho on the condition that she participate in workgroup. Tonight, the patients would try creative writing.
Cecile shifted her weight in her sandals. OK, she said. Fine.
Later, I went to the dumpster in the back lot, cut open the garbage bag with a pair of scissors, and slipped my hand inside. Between eggshells, plastic spoons, and coffee filters, I felt the plastic cover of a DVD case. After wiping the cover clean, I returned the movie to the supply closet and sat at the monitor’s desk in the corner of the common area. The other residents lay on the sofa across from me — Sadie in her terry-cloth robe, Lucia with her hair damp and shoulders draped in a white towel.
The girls watched as a boy in a silk shawl and feather boa followed a man in a white suit toward the beach. I looked so good all made-up, said the subtitles. But now I feel sticky. I’ve lost interest in all of this. Sadie turned her head toward me. Rosalyn, she said. Watch with us. She wanted someone to talk over the movie with her, and Lucia never talked. I locked my notes in the desk drawer and fit myself into the empty space where Cecile would have sat.
