Mushroom Surprise

The density in the air seems to compress the room and everyone in it. No one uttered so much as a sound since Jessica began cooking the dinner that now sat before them—Succulent and juicy chicken marsala drowning in salty, sweet brown marsala sauce and an abundance of mushrooms. The serving platter continues to steam, wafting the dish's flavors, tickling the senses around the dinner table. Though there weren’t many of them, this was bound to be a dinner, never to be forgotten.

CLINK—Jessica clinks her wine glass with Melissa’s. The prolonged, deafening silence sends a jolt throughout the table. Melissa, Jake, and everything that sits on the table shudders. But Jessica just smirks. 

“Well…” she begins, “there’s plenty of wine and food to go around, so dig in,” Jessica directs. Though her voice was soft and pleasant sounding enough, her invitation sounded more like a command. Jake and Melissa exchange tentative glances and serve themselves. Jake scoops up a heaping serving of chicken marsala while Melissa pours the red Sangiovese into the empty glass Jessica had toasted moments earlier. 

___________________________________________

When Jessica Hart arrives home from her recent work trip to California, it’s 5:00 am by the time she’s exiting her silver Land Rover feeling depleted of all energy. The automatic security light was still shining and illuminating the stairway in the still, gray, obscured morning. 

She expects to see her husband, Jake, awake and preparing to head off to work, but when the front door clicks open, all the lights are off and Jessica discovers a silent house. “Jake,” Jessica yells. Silence. “Where the hell is he? He said he’d be here when I got home,” she utters aloud to herself.

“Whatever. I’m tired anyway,” she says, trudging up the stairs to their bedroom. She prefers climbing into bed over the inevitable argument she and Jake would have gotten into. Things hadn’t been going well for the couple for quite some time. Jake’s angry with Jessica’s constant travel for work and she’s sick of the excessive drinking that ended with him passing out on the couch. Even so, she loved him. And he loved her, right..? 

At least, that’s what she hoped, that Jake still loved her. Jessica was planning to tell him she would quit her job for something that didn’t require travel if he would get control of his drinking. It wasn’t like she loved her job. She simply hadn’t been ready to leave a company where she worked for over 10 years. 

 Ugh, why is every light out in this house? We never turn off all of the lights. Jake better hope I don’t fall and break my neck, feeling my way through the dark like this. The entry, pitch black in every direction. Even the at the top of the stairs was nowhere to be seen. But she had to get up the stairs, so she grips the dark cherry wood banister that leads up to the second floor of their historic Omaha home. 

The hallway leading to the bathroom isn’t very long. The design of the house conveniently places the bathroom within the line of sight of the stairs, but Jessica wasn’t able to see the helpful light normally visible. Using her hands to feel along the wall—Tap, tap, tap. There it is! But… wait, it’s closed. We’ve been married for eight years and we’ve never closed the door to the bathroom unless we had company. It’s their cat, Bella’s favorite room in the house. So, for it to be closed was… Click. Jessica turns the doorknob and opens the door. 

She almost forgot how badly she needs to use the restroom but the moment the door opens, she makes her way toward the toilet—the lid was still up. Jessica pauses, but the necessity to relieve herself demands priority. So, she slides her black pencil skirt down and takes a seat.

As relief spread through her body, she closes her eyes savoring the lessening pressure, another anomaly catches her attention. Any other time, she wouldn’t have noticed, but the lid wasn’t closed. The automatic closing feature to the trashcan had been on the fritz for a couple of months. Neither Jake nor Jessica cared too much, since they so seldom used the bin in the bathroom, at least not the one in the hallway. The bin was empty except for a couple of tissues and one other item that had no business being there.

Leaning down toward the bin next to her, she reaches inside and pulls out… “Positive”—Jessica blinks in disbelief… This just isn’t possible. Jessica sits fixated on the pregnancy test between her fingers. We haven’t had sex in months, and I’ve been gone for over a month. The only woman other than myself who could have taken and disposed of a pregnancy test in this house would be… Jake’s sister? No, no—not possible. She had her tubes tied after her fifth pregnancy, which was three years ago. Jessica continues to ponder where the pregnancy test could have come from when it hits her. 

The bathroom door was closed, the light was off; the lid was up on the toilet, and the bin lid was up, and the only person Jessica knows who leaves up the lid and shuts the door without fail is Melissa. Could it be… her best friend? Were her best friend since childhood and her husband of eight years having an affair right under her nose?

Skipping straight from confusion into fury, she shakes. The plastic stick wavers between her fingers. The sentiment to compromise and save her marriage dissolves into a furious rage bent on revenge. She had been confiding in Melissa about the issues between her and Jake, and she was screwing him all along. “How dare they betray me like this,” she bellows, tossing the positive pregnancy test back into the bin and closing the lid. “One thing is for certain,” she continues, “that child will never be born.” 

Thump, thump, thump, Vroom—Startled by the sudden noise, Jessica cleans herself up, composes herself, and looks out the window. Jake’s unmistakable blue shock Charger (he just had to get the custom color) pulls into the driveway next to her much less ostentatious deep gray Land Rover. But he didn’t get out of the car, nor did he turn it off. The tinted windows and the day’s sun, which was now climbing the grey sky, made it impossible to see inside. Jessica stands staring out at her husband’s car in the driveway for what feels like an eternity. What the hell is he doing just sitting there? Just then she makes out movement from inside, but it’s not Jake.

The soft rumble of the car’s engine stops. Both driver and passenger doors open and there she is, Melissa. Is he not even trying to hide it? They know I’m here. He parked right next to my car. Deciding to compose herself and pretend that she doesn’t yet know of their affair, Jessica powders her nose. She could hear the front door handle so she turns around and struts out into the hallway. 

Jessica left her suitcase by the door when she arrived. The darkness shrouded the entire house, and she didn’t need to complicate things by dragging her luggage along while she found her way. Standing at the top of the stairs, she hears hushed words from behind the door, but she can’t make out what they were, and it was taking a ridiculously long time for the door to open. 

If they will not come in, I’ll go down. Jessica descends the stairs, being as quiet as possible, toward the door under the pretense of grabbing her suitcase. As she reaches the door, the hushed words stop. This is utter nonsense. I’m taking control of this right now. Jessica pulls the door open.

“Jake,” Jessica smiles, “and Melissa,” pausing for dramatic effect, a giant smile beaming at them both. “It’s so great to see you, Melissa. I had no idea you would be coming over.”

“Oh, well, it was supposed to be a surprise,” Melissa said.

“Y - yeah,” Jake agreed. 

“Well, it is a surprise, isn’t it?” Jessica says, teeming with menacing undertones. But then, they wouldn’t know that. Something snapped inside her the moment she knew. She was no longer the Jessica they both know and claimed to love. And they were about to find out just how different she was.

“You know what we haven’t done in ages?” Jessica asks ushering them inside and guiding them toward the kitchen. She could sense the desperation and tension between them like they were trying to communicate a plan before anything blew up in their face. They won’t know what hit them.

“No, babe… what - what’s that?” Jake stutters. 

“I haven’t cooked dinner for the three of us. How ‘bout it? I’ll make Chicken Marsala,” Jessica was glowing, for the joy she savors knowing she would soon have her revenge permeated through her. She’s far too focused on her task. She doesn’t wait for a response from Jake or Melissa, but she notices they separate themselves by the time they reach the kitchen. At least they’re trying not to be so obvious, but little do they know… it no longer matters.

Melissa Kring is Jessica’s childhood best friend and was the maid of honor at her and Jake’s wedding; she’s more family than a friend. And Jessica trusts Melissa with every corner of her life. They lean on one another when something happens in each other’s lives. This remains a constant even after her marriage to Jake. They are a dynamic duo. She is the only one who knows everything about her. Everything. 

It isn’t as though she has anything sinister in her past—at least, not her, anyway. Jessica longed to share all of it with Jake, but she’s been too afraid of how his family would treat her… look at her. He comes from an old family, a very wealthy family. And if they knew she didn’t have a family because she bounced between group homes and foster families through her childhood, well, they weren’t the sort of people who would feel empathy. They especially wouldn’t feel an iota of compassion when they learn not only is she a foster kid, but her real mother was a heroin addict who overdosed in a drug den, leaving her baby alone to absorb the chemicals playing keep away with the users’ hearts, brains, and sense of reality. No, they’d find it all too scandalous, can’t let a shred of anything that might tarnish their impeccable reputation get out. My relationship with Jake would have been over before I knew it. 

The plates and glasses around the table are full. And to avoid any further uncomfortable conversation, they eat in silence appearing to savor their saucy plate of chicken marsala—That’s saying Melissa and Jake are feasting forkful after forkful while Jessica continues to sip Sangiovese and take the occasional nibble from her salad. 

“So,” Jessica begins, “how’s the chicken?” she asks, beaming. 

“Delicious as always, dear,” Jake responds.

“These mushrooms are interesting,” Melissa says, holding one on her fork in front of her. “What kind are they?” 

“They’re a blend for optimal flavor,” Jessica answers, sipping her wine.

“Why aren’t you eating?” Melissa asks, putting down her fork and picking up her wineglass.

“I’m not all that hungry, so I’m starting with the salad and some wine,” Jessica responds in a casual tone and with the glimmer of a devious smirk. 

“Yeah, you prefer your wine over food much of the time,” Melissa sides, leaning back in her chair with her wine glass still cradling between her fingers. 

“Mmm ‘prefer’—No, not so much, but if I’m not hungry, I’ll drink my wine until I am. Should you even be drinking wine, Melissa?” 

They both stare at each other, glass in hand, sipping. With determination, Jessica takes larger and larger sips from her glass, not shifting her gaze, challenging Melissa. Melissa senses her challenge and starts feeling queasy, but remains resolute. A loud reverberating flump breaks the invisible tether between Jessica’s dark, steely gray eyes and Melissa’s deep oceanic blues, diverting their attention in Jake’s direction. 

Neither of them was thinking of Jake and forgot he was there; he was continuing to eat in silence at the other end of the table. Jessica and Melissa glower at each other, almost daring the other to say something first, but then thunk—Jake’s face had smashed into his plate and he wasn’t moving. Melissa shrieks and hurries to his side. 

In desperation, “J… Jake? she shakes him; Jake, answer me, Jake!” His body only moved in response to her furtive attempt to get his attention. She soon realizes that she can’t get his attention. He’s dead. Almost in a whisper, “You know,” Melissa says, turning back toward Jessica.

“...that you and my husband have been having an affair behind my back. Yes, I know. And that you got yourself pregnant. Yeah, I know that, too.” Jessica couldn’t help but become impatient. Why is she still alive? Jake succumbed. So why hasn’t Melissa? Suddenly, Jessica noticed how intensely her stomach hurt. Feeling like she might vomit, she tries to stand but falls back into her chair. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Melissa smirking. 

“Yeah, well, we had already planned to get rid of you,” Melissa said matter-of-factly, so I guess we’re all screw… ugh”—grabbing her side, her breathing fast and shallow. 

“I—I still get the…” 

Those were the last words either Melissa or Jessica would ever speak. Cough, cough, cough—“Finally, I can have some peace,” Jake sputters, lifting his face from his plate of mushrooms, chicken, and sauce, which he had pretended to eat. With Jessica and Melissa gone, Jake could go back on the prowl for his next conquest.