In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

FROM OBSCURITY TO CLARITY
The MRI room door buzzed as Penny was ejected, and in the
penumbra behind the glass partition she saw the octagonal reflection of
Züt's glasses. Behind him appeared Sandro with an empty wheelchair.
By now Penny could walk well enough, but regulations always had you
a step behind your potential, she noticed.
Penny's head was still wrapped in her turban of bandages, so
she could understand his face when he saw her, yet he didn't miss a
beat before his lips were warm on the back of her neck, ignoring Züt
altogether.
Züt sat next to her in the back seat of what was obviously his
own mustard colored Volvo sedan, with an oval CH sticker on the back
above the DC license plate. Sandro sat in front next to the rent-adriver,
away from mischief.
Penny gazed out the window as they sped down the Long
Island Expressway, the doctor hunched over his laptop. Sandro, more
jittery than ever, nearly jumped out of his seat with terror as a tractor
trailer thundered past on their right, its cargo wrapped in post 9/11
wavy flag wallpaper. Züt glanced at Penny after the monster truck and
its E.L.F.'s passed.
Penny wondered why they were in this old jalopy. And why
Sandro was there at all, doing the work of an orderly in that snazzy new
James Bond suit. And why didn't he smell like whiskey? Or cigarettes?
The car was saturated with Züt's pipe tobacco, but there was not a hint
of the Marlboro's.
The first thing she saw when Züt flipped on the lights was that
the Madonna had company. In an identical though slightly more
chewed up frame was the angel, very worm-eaten around the edges but
otherwise fresh-faced, his long tapered fingers daintily holding his
scepter as if it was a lily.
Before she could take in a breath Sandro's arms enveloped her,
to Züt's abject horror. She couldn't feel anything at all except the gentle
shaking of his frame and the tears meandering down her back. She
couldn't cry. She wanted to melt into him, but there was a wall between
her and how she wanted to feel. He appeared to sense this and backed
away, or perhaps it was the fear, because he stole a quick glance at the
274