Zoe’s Tale PART III Chapter Twenty

Admit it, Enzo steat, done the personal organiser. You forgot.I did non, I tell, with what I hoped was scarcely the right amount of indignation to suggest that I had non forgotten, which I had.I washbasin come across the fake indignation, he verbalise.Rats, I said. Youre on to me. Fin wholly(a)y.Finally? in that respects no finally, Enzo said. Ive been on to you since I met you.Maybe you clear, I allowed.And either demeanor, that doesnt authorise this problem, Enzo said. Were ab divulge to sit d give for dinner party. Youre supposed to be here. Not to mold you feel guilty or anything.This was the difference attendween me and Enzo give a flairright and past. There used to be a sentence when Enzo would have said those haggling and they would have come out righting standardised he was accusitory me of something (be facial expressions, of course, being late). besides right outright they were gentle and funny. Yes, he was exasperated, merely he was exasperated in a way that suggested I major power be able to take away it up to him. Which I probably would, if he didnt push it.I am in fact wracked with guilt, I said.Good, Enzo said. Because you do it we put a whole extra potato in the yammer for you.Gracious, I said. A whole potato.And I promised the twins they could throw their carrots at you, he said, referring to his little sisters. Because I greet how practically you chouse carrots. peculiarly when theyre kid-hurled.I dont tell apart why any hotshot would eat them any otherwise way, I said.And after dinner I was dismission to determine you a meter I wrote for you, Enzo said.I paused. Now thats not fair, I said. Injecting something touchable into our witty banter.Sorry, Enzo said.Did you really? I asked. You havent indite me a poem in ages.I know, he said. I estimate I readiness narrow binding into practice. I re constituent you physical body of kindredd it.You jerk, I said. Now I really do feel guilty for for getti ng about dinner.Dont feel likewise guilty, Enzo said. Its not a very good poem. It doesnt even rhyme.Well, thats a relief, I said. I even-tempered felt giddy. Its nice to get poems.Ill drive it to you, Enzo said. You can read it instead. And because, maybe if youre nice to me, Ill read it to you. Dramatically.What if Im mean to you? I asked. whence Ill read it melodramatically, he said. Ill wave my beef ups and perpetuallyything.Youre making a faux pas for me being mean to you, I said.Hey, youre already missing dinner, Enzo said. Thats worth an arm wave or two.Jerk, I said. I could almost hear him grimace everyplace the personal digital assistant.Gotta go, Enzo said. Moms telling me to set the table.Do you motivation me to try to refer it? I asked. All of a sudden I really did motive to be there. I can try.Youre going to run across the perfect resolution in five minutes? Enzo said.I could do it, I said.Maybe Babar could, Enzo said. solely he has two legs much(prenom inal) than you.Fine, I said. Ill send Babar to have dinner with you.Enzo laughed. Do that, he said. Ill tell you what, Zoe. Walk here at a cerebrateable pace, and youll probably make it in quantify for dessert. Mom made a pie.Yay, pie, I said. What kind?I conjecture its called Zoe gets whatever kind of pie she gets and likes it pie, Enzo said.Mmmm, I said. I always like that kind of pie.Well, yeah, Enzo said. Its right there in the deed.Its a date, I said.Good, Enzo said. Dont forget. I know thats a problem for you.Jerk, I said.Check your get by queue, Enzo said. There might be a poem there.Im going to wait for the hand waving, I said.Thats probably for the best, Enzo said. Itll be better that way. And now my mom is glaring at me with laser eyeballs. I have to go.Go, I said. See you soon.Okay, Enzo said. Love you. We had started look that to for individually one other latterly. It seemed to fit.Love you too, I said, and disconnected.You two make me wish to vomit so back j ailbreak, Gretchen said. Shed been audience my side of the conversation and had been rolling her eye the whole condemnation. We were sitting in her bed live.I set down the organiser and whacked her with a pillow. Youre sightly jealous Magdy neer enounces that to you.Oh, dear Lord, Gretchen said. difference aside the fact that I so do not want to hear that from him, if he ever did try to say that to me, his target would real explode before the words could even get out of his mouth. Which now that I think about it might be an excellent dry land to try to get him to say it.You two are so cute, I said. I can see you two standing at the communion table and getting into it right before saying I do.Zoe, if I ever get anywhere arise an altar with Magdy, I authorize you to make a flying tackle and drag me away, Gretchen said.Oh, fine, I said.Now lets never speak of this again, Gretchen said.Youre so in denial, I said.At least Im not the one who forgot her dinner date, Gretchen sai d.It gets worse, I said. He wrote me poetry. He was going to read it to me.You missed dinner and a show, Gretchen said. You are the worst girlfriend ever.I know, I said. I r all(prenominal)ed for my PDA. Ill write him an apology note saying that. break it extra grovelly, Gretchen said. Because thats sexy.That comment explains a lot about you, Gretchen, I said, and indeed my PDA took on a disembodied spirit of its own, blasting an alarm sound from its speaker and scrolling an air bang notice on its screen. Over on Gretchens desk, her PDA made the same alarm sound and scrolled the same message. any PDA in the colony did the same. In the distance, we heard the sirens, posted near the Mennonite homesteads, alerting them because they didnt use personal technology.For the head start time since the defeat of the junto fleet, Roanoke was under attack. Missiles were on their way.I rushed to the introduction of Gretchens room. Where are you going? she asked. I ignored her and went outs ide, where people were bursting out of their homes and running for c all over, and looked into the sky.What are you doing? Gretchen said, communicable up with me. We indispensableness to get to a protect.Look, I said, and pointed.In the distance, a bright needle of light was tracing across the sky, aiming at something we couldnt rather see. therefore there was a flash, blinding white. There was a simplyification satellite above Roanoke it had fired on and hit one of the missiles approach shot for us. But others were still on their way.The sharp pop of the missile effusion reached us, with not nearly enough time lag.Come on, Zoe, Gretchen said, and started tugging at me. Weve got to go.I stopped spirit at the sky and ran with Gretchen to one of the community shelters we had recently excavated and build it was filling up quickly with colonists. As I ran I saw hickory tree and Dickory, who had spotted me they closed in and took either side of me as we got into the shelter. Even in the panic, people still made room for them. Gretchen, Hickory, Dickory, about four dozen other colonists, and I all change posture down in the shelter, straining to hear what was going on above us through and through nearly a dozen feet of dirt and concrete.What do you think is happ soulfulness said and then there was unspeakable wrenching noise, like someone had taken one of the cargo containers that made up the colony wall and peeled it apart, right on top of our eardrums and then I was tumbling to the setting because there was an earthquake and I screamed and bet that everyone else in the shelter did too notwithstanding I couldnt hear it because then came the single loudest noise I had ever heard, so loud that my judgment surrendered and the noise became the absence of noise, and the only way I knew that I, at least, was still screaming was that I could feel my throat getting raw. Either Hickory or Dickory grabbed me and held me steady I could see Gretchen being h eld the same way by the other Obin.The lights in the shelter flickered exclusively stayed on.Eventually I stopped screaming and the ground stopped shaking and something similar to my hearing came back to me and I could hear others in the shelter crying and praying and move to calm children. I looked over at Gretchen, who looked stricken. I disentangled from Dickory (it rancid out) and went over to her.You okay? I asked. My representative sounded like it was pushed through cotton fiber from a distance. Gretchen nodded but didnt look at me. It occurred to me it was the low gear time shed been in an attack.I looked around. Most of the people in the shelter looked like Gretchen. It was the first time any of these people had been in an attack. Of all these people, I was the one who was the veteran of a hostile attack. I guess that put me in charge.I saw a PDA on the floor someone had dropped it. I picked it up and activated it and read what was there. Then I stood up and waved my h ands back and forth and said Excuse me until people started looking at me. I think enough people recognized me as the daughter of the colony leaders that they decided I might know something after all.The compulsion information on the PDA says that the attack seems to be over, I said when enough people were looking my way. But until we get an all clear signal we need to stay here in the shelter. We need to stay here and stay calm. Is anyone here injured or roam?I cant hear very well, someone said.I dont think any of us can hear well right now, I said. Thats why Im yelling. It was an attempt at a joke. I dont think people were going for it. Are there any injuries here besides hearing bolshie? No one said anything or raised their hand. Then lets just sit tight here and wait for the all clear. I held up the PDA I was using. Whose is this? Someone raised their hand I asked if I could borrow it.Someone took in charge lessons when I wasnt looking, Gretchen said when I sat back down fol lowing(a) to her. The words were classic Gretchen, but the voice was very, very shaky.We were just under attack, I said. If someone doesnt pretend like she knows what shes doing, people are going to start freaking out. That would be bad.Not arguing, Gretchen said. just now impressed. She pointed to the PDA. Can you send any messages? Can we find out whats happening?I dont think so, I said. The emergency system overrides usual messaging, I think. I subscribe out the owner on the PDA and signed in under my account. See. Enzo said he sent that poem to me but its not there yet. Its probably queued and will get sent at once we have the all clear.So we dont know if everyone else is okay, Gretchen said.Im sure well get an all clear signal soon, I said. You dysphoric about your dad?Yes. Arent you worried about your parents? Gretchen asked.They were soldiers, I said. Theyve done this before. Im worried about them, but Im forebode theyre fine. And Jane is the one running the emergency m essages. As long as theyre updating, shes fine. The PDA switched over from my mail queue to a scrolling note we were being disposed(p) the all clear. See, I said.I had Hickory and Dickory check the entrance of the shelter for any falling debris it was clear. I signed out from the PDA and gave it back to its owner, and then folks started shuffling out. Gretchen and I were the last to head up.Watch your step, Gretchen said as we came up, and pointed to the ground. Glass was everywhere. I looked around. All the resides and buildings were standing, but almost all the windows were blown out. Wed be picking glass out of everything for twenty-four hourss.At least its been nice weather, I said. No one seemed to hear me. Probably just as well.I said good-bye to Gretchen and headed to my house with Hickory and Dickory. I found more glass in strike places and Babar cowering in the shower stall. I managed to coax him out and gave him a wide-ranging hug. He licked my organization with incr easing franticness. After I petted him and calmed him down, I reached for my PDA to call Mom or Dad, and then realized I had left it over at Gretchens. I had Hickory and Dickory stay with Babar he needed their company more than I did at the moment and walked over to Gretchens. As I walked to her house, her front door swung open and Gretchen burst through it, saw me and ran to me, her PDA in one hand and mine in the other.Zoe, she said, and then her face tightened up, and whatever she had to say was lost for a minute.Oh, no, I said. Gretchen. Gretchen. What is it? Is it your dad? Is your dad okay?Gretchen shook her head, and looked up at me. Its not my dad, she said. My dad is fine. Its not Dad. Zoe, Magdy just called me. He says something hit. Hit Enzos homestead. He said the house is still there but theres something big in the yard. He thinks its part of a missile. Says he well-tried to call Enzo but hes not there. No ones there. No ones answering there. He said they just built a bomb shelter, away from the house. In the yard, Zoe. Magdy says he keeps calling and no one answers. I just called Enzo, too. I dont get anything, Zoe. It doesnt even connect. I keep trying. Oh God, Zoe. Oh God, Zoe. Oh, God.Enzo Paulo Gugino was natural on Zhong Guo, the first child of Bruno and Natalie Gugino. Bruno and Natalie had known each other since they were children and everyone who knew them knew that from the first moment they laid eyes on each other that they would be unneurotic for every single moment of their lives. Bruno and Natalie didnt struggle with this idea. Bruno and Natalie, as far as anyone ever knew, never argued about anything, and certainly didnt argue with each other. They married young, even for the deeply religious enculturation they lived in on Zhong Guo, in which people often married early. But no one could imagine the two of them not being in concert their parents gave their consent and the two of them were married in one of the best-attended we ddings anyone could remember in their hometown of Pomona Falls. Nine months later, almost to the sidereal solar day, there was Enzo.Enzo was sweet from the moment he was born(p) he was always happy and only occasionally fussy, although (as was frequently explained, much to his later mortification) he had a marked tendency to take gain his own diapers and smear the contents of them against the nearest available wall. This caused a real problem one time in a bank. Fortunately he was toilet-trained early.Enzo met his best friend Magdy Metwalli in kindergarten. On the first day of school, a third-grader had tried to pick on Enzo, and pushed him hard down to the ground Magdy, whom Enzo had never seen before in his life, launched himself at the third-grader and started punching him in the face. Magdy, who at the time was small for his age, did no real damage other than scaring the pee out of the third-grader (literally) it was Enzo who eventually pulled Magdy off the third-grader and calmed him down before they were all sent to the principals say-so and then home for the day.Enzo showed a flair for words early and wrote his first myth when he was seven, entitled The horrible sock that smelled bad and ate Pomona Falls except for my house, in which a large sock, mutated by its own horrible unwashed smell, started eating its way through the contents of an full(a) town and was thwarted only when the heroes Enzo and Magdy first punched it into submission and then threw it into a swimming pool filled with laundry soap. The first part of the story (about the origin of the sock) took three sentences the climactic battle scene took three pages. narration is Magdy (the one reading the story, not the one in it) kept intercommunicate for more of the fight scene.When Enzo was ten his make became pregnant for a heartbeat time, with twins Maria and Katherina. The pregnancy was difficult, and complicated because Natalies body had a hard time keeping two babies in it at o nce the tar was a near thing and Natalie came close to bleeding out more than once. It took Natalie more than a year to fully recover, and during that time the ten- and eleven-year-old Enzo helped his father and engender to care for his sisters, learning to change diapers and feed the girls when his mom needed a rest. This was the occasion of the only real fight between Magdy and Enzo Magdy jokingly called Enzo a sissy for helping his mom, and Enzo smacked him in the mouth.When Enzo was fifteen the Guginos and the Metwallis and two other families they knew entered a group application to be part of the very first colony world made up of citizens of the Colonial Union rather than citizens of Earth. For the next few months every part of Enzos life, and the life of his family, was heart-to-heart up to scrutiny, and he bore it with as much grace as anyone who was fifteen and who by and large just cherished to be left alone could have. Every member of every family was required to subm it a statement explaining why they wanted to be part of the colony. Bruno Gugino explained how he had been a fan of the American resolution era, and the early history of the Colonial Union he wanted to be part of this new chapter of history. Natalie Gugino wrote about wanting to raise her family on a world where everyone was working together. Maria and Katherina drew pictures of them floating in situation with smiley moons.Enzo, who savor words more and more, wrote a poem, imagining himself standing on a new world, and titled it The Stars My Destination. He later admitted hed taken the title from an hide out fantasy adventure book that hed never read but whose title stayed with him. The poem, meant only for his application, was leaked to the local media and became something of a sensation. It eventually became sort of an official informal anthem for the Zhong Guo colonization effort. And after all that, Enzo and his family and co-applicants really couldnt not be chosen to go.Wh en Enzo had just turned sixteen, he met a girl, named Zoe, and for some reason that passes understanding, he fell for her. Zoe was a girl who seemed like she knew what she was doing most of the time and was happy to tell you that this was in fact the case, all the time, but in their private moments, Enzo learned that Zoe was as nervous and unsealed and terrified that she would say or do something stupid to panic away this boy she thought she might love, as he was nervous and uncertain and terrified that he would do something stupid, too. They talked and touched and held and kissed and learned how not to be nervous and uncertain and terrified of each other. They did say and do stupid things, and they did eventually scare each other away, because they didnt know any better. But then they got over it, and when they were together again, that second time, they didnt wonder whether they might love each other. Because they knew they did. And they told each other so.On the day Enzo died h e talked to Zoe, joked with her about her missing the dinner she was supposed to have with his family, and promised to send her a poem he had written for her. Then he told her he loved her and heard her tell him she loved him. Then he sent her the poem and sat down with his family to dinner. When the emergency alert came, the Gugino family, father Bruno, mother Natalie, daughters Maria and Katherina, and son Enzo, went together into the attack shelter Bruno and Enzo had made just a week before, and sat together close, holding each other and waiting for the all clear.On the day Enzo died he knew he was loved. He knew he was loved by his mother and father who, like everyone knew, never stopped loving each other until the very moment they died. Their love for each other became their love for him, and for their daughters. He knew he was loved by his sisters, who he cared for when they were small, and when he was small. He knew he was loved by his best friend, who he never stopped gettin g out of trouble, and who he never stopped getting into trouble with. And he knew he was loved by Zoe by me who he called his love and who said the words back to him.Enzo lived a life of love, from the moment he was born until the moment he died. So many people go through life without love. Wanting love. Hoping for love. Hungering for more of it than they have. Missing love when it was gone. Enzo never had to go through that. Would never have to.All he knew all his life was love.I have to think it was enough.It would have to be, now.I spent the day with Gretchen and Magdy and all of Enzos friends, of whom there were so many, crying and laughing and remembering him, and then at some point I couldnt take any more because everyone had begun to treat me like Enzos widow and though in a way I felt like I was, I didnt want to have to share that with anyone. It was mine and I wanted to be greedy for it for just a little while. Gretchen saw I had reached some sort of breaking point, and w alked me back to her room and told me to get some rest, and that shed check on me later. Then she gave me a fierce hug, kissed me on the temple and told me she loved me and closed the door behind me. I lay there in Gretchens bed and tried not to think and did a pretty good job of it until I remembered Enzos poem, waiting for me in my mail queue.Gretchen had put my PDA on her desk and I walked over, took the PDA and sat back down on the bed, and pulled up my mail queue and saw the mail from Enzo. I reached to press the screen to think back it and then called up the directory instead. I found the folder titled Enzo Dodgeball and undefendable it and started playing the files, watching as Enzo flailed his way around the dodgeball court, taking hits to the face and tumbling to the ground with unbelievable comic timing. I watched until I laughed so hard that I could barely see, and had to put the PDA down for a minute to concentrate on the simple act of breathing in and out.When I had m astered that again, I picked up the PDA, called up the mail queue, and opened the mail from Enzo.ZoeHere you are. Youll have to imagine the arm waving for now. But the live show is coming That is, after we have pie. Mmmmpie.BELONGYou said I hold up to youAnd I agreeBut the quality of that beIs a question of some importance.I do not perish to to youLike a purchaseSomething ordered and soldAnd delivered in a boxTo be put up and shown offTo friends and admirers.I would not survive to you that wayAnd I know you would not have me so.I will tell you how I belong to you.I belong to you like a ring on a fingerA attribute of something eternal.I belong to you like a heart in a chestBeating in time to another heart.I belong to you like a word on the airSending love to your ear.I belong to you like a kiss on your lips sick there by me, in the hope of more to come.And most of all I belong to youBecause in where I hold my hopesI hold the hope that you belong to me.It is a hope I unfold for y ou now like a gift.Belong to me like a ringAnd a heartAnd a wordAnd a kissAnd like a hope held close.I will belong to you like all these thingsAnd likewise something moreSomething we will discover between usAnd will belong to us alone.You said I belong to youAnd I agree.Tell me you belong to me, too.I wait for your wordAnd hope for your kiss.Love you.Enzo.I love you, too, Enzo. I love you.I miss you.