“A Good Roommate Is Hard to Find”

by Moira Richardson

I really like my roommate. He’s a pretty low-key, chill type of guy, and more importantly, he’s hardly ever home, which, if you ask me, is a pretty great quality for a roommate to have. When he is home, he’s usually cooking. He’s a great chef and generous insomuch that I hardly ever have to order takeout anymore, so he’s saved me a fortune in delivery fees. He’s neat and he always cleans up after himself, so no problems there.

Henry never brings home company, which wouldn’t be a problem if he did, but my last roommate had this bitch of a girlfriend who was always hanging around, criticizing everything I did in that nasally tone of voice she had, driving me absolutely up the wall. Plus he was a total slob, so there were no tears shed when he announced that he’d be moving out, even if the asshole only gave me two weeks’ notice instead of the usual thirty days. Whatever. Good riddance.

When Henry first came to look at the apartment, he was a little geeky looking, with his chunky black glasses and perpetually messy hair, but he was nice enough, even if he was a little vague about himself. And that’s fine, whatever, I like my privacy, too, but between you and me, Henry’s maybe a little too private. I still have no idea where he grew up, what he does for a living, or even if he’s dating anyone. I don’t even see him all that often; he’s hardly ever home.

Once a week or so, I wake up in the morning to find a note on the fridge telling me to help myself to whatever culinary masterpiece he’d made while I was sleeping. And when I do see him, he’s always polite, asks me how my day’s been or how things are going with Sally, since we were on the rocks there for a couple of weeks, but he never really answers me whenever I ask him anything personal, just smiles and changes the subject. I didn’t exactly notice at first, maybe because I really am as clueless as Sally is always accusing me of being, but after a while I started realizing that he always seemed to divert my attention away from whatever questioning I was doing.

And I don’t exactly care that much as long as he’s paying the rent on time, which he is, like clockwork; on the last Saturday of each month he gives me a check for the next month’s rent and utilities, and, every time, the check clears with no issues, which is more than I can say for the last guy, who was always asking me to hold the check ‘til next payday. And I gotta admit that I’ve gained five pounds since he moved in and started leaving me his leftovers. So maybe I should just drop it, like Sally is always telling me, because what does it matter, really?

Except there is sort of this weird thing that I’ve been noticing, and it’s probably nothing, but there have been these disappearances in my neighborhood lately. And I’m not saying Henry has anything to do with them, because that’s crazy, right? Sally sure thinks so, but the thing is, I looked through the archives of the local paper and the first one I found happened about two weeks after he moved in. So yeah, that’s probably just a coincidence, except he’ll be around for a couple of days and then I won’t see him for a week and when he comes back, there’s a new article about a missing person.

It’s been a couple of months now since the disappearances started, and it doesn’t seem like anybody’s paying all that much attention, but I keep seeing these little blurbs about another person gone missing. Maybe if it was kids or young women going missing people would be all up in arms about it, but from the sound of things, these missing people are the type of people that nobody exactly misses, if you know what I’m saying. They are all men, all of them with criminal records for some pretty nasty things, from what I’ve found in my research. One guy was on trial for manslaughter, but the charges got dropped after the main witness turned up dead. Another was in prison for embezzling a few million from a children’s charity, but some of the records got mixed up somewhere along the way and he was released early on a technicality, and another had been accused of murdering his longtime girlfriend, but they never found her body, so no charges were ever filed, things like that.

So it’s not like these people going missing are the crème de la crème of human society, but it’s just kind of weird that Henry disappears for a few days and then he comes back and cooks up a storm, leaving me all those delicious leftovers in the fridge, smiling that soft little smile of his on the occasions I do happen to find him sitting in the living room reading a book or writing in his journal. He’s so quiet, so polite, and, really, just the best roommate ever, so I shouldn’t be thinking about the fact that the missing-person articles always seem to coincide with his times away, right?

Sally’s always reminding me that a good roommate is hard to find—she didn’t like the last one either—and she says that it’s not like Henry’s involved, it’s just a coincidence, and I need to just leave it alone. And I know that I should, but there’s another thing that’s been bothering me, and this I haven’t been able to bring myself to say to Sally, because I know it’s really crazy that I’m thinking this way, but here’s the thing: he’s been living here for a few months and I’ve never seen him with grocery bags. Like ever.

And okay, he might be bringing everything in the middle of the night, which is when he’s usually coming back to the place, but wouldn’t there be trash from the packaging? Styrofoam trays, sticky labels with the store name and the weights, empty plastic shopping bags? There are only ever crumbled balls of plastic wrap, red with blood, but no labels, no shopping bags, no trays, and it’s been starting to bother me, because my mind is going to places that no man’s should ever go, especially because the food that Henry leaves for me is so damn delicious that I’ve gone up a notch on my belt.

I feel like I should tell somebody, but tell them what, exactly? My sneaking suspicions about the best roommate I’ve ever had? No, it’s probably better that I don’t.

And truth be told, I should stop eating the food, too, on account of the… questions I have, but I’ve gotten used to eating well, and I’m finding it hard to resist such delicacies as fromage de tete, hachis parmentier, and ris de veau, foods that I had never heard of before Henry moved in, but foods that melt in my hungry mouth even though I have no idea whatsoever what I’m eating. Sally looked up one of the dishes, because she’s always been picky and had crinkled her nose up at the look of it, even as I encouraged her to take a bite because it was delicious. The crinkle had grown deeper when she’d googled it.

“What is it?” I’d asked her, in between greedy bites.

She was staring at her phone, face wrinkled in deep disgust. She retched and instead of answering me, she got up and tried to take the container out of my hands. “Don’t eat that,” she said.

I snatched the container out of her reach and continued eating. Sally thought rare steaks were gross, so I didn’t exactly trust her culinary judgment. I didn’t bother to question her further and ignored her when she got up and walked out of the room as she continued to gag. The truth was, I didn’t care. The food was delicious, and if I found out I was eating snails or something horrible, it might ruin the experience. Instead, I stopped offering Sally leftovers and, truth be told, I enjoyed keeping them to myself.

I had nearly convinced myself that Henry was secretly a chef at a five-star Michelin restaurant, keeping a low profile, until I found out that our state doesn’t have any Michelin restaurants at all, and, of course, I kept seeing those missing-person blurbs in the paper. If I keep eating his food, knowing what I think I know, or at least, very strongly suspect, am I aiding and abetting or am I merely satisfying an appetite? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that I’ve decided that whatever his quirks, Henry is the best roommate I’ve ever had.

I’m not interested in finding someone to replace him, so I’m keeping my mouth shut and I’m shutting off my mind, too, because Henry made something called langue de boeuf avec rognon last night and the first bite I took practically made me swoon. The note said it was best fresh, and he wouldn’t be back for a few days, so I’d hate to waste it. And, besides, like Sally says, a good roommate is hard to find.

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