Bruno

by Pokorney, Stephanie

  “Bruno’s been having the same symptom’s he had last year. They are going to run some more tests. She has to take him into the city next week. Alex is going to come over here if they’re Aunt can’t look over Alex like she did last year while Bruno was in treatments. Did you know he might be sick again, Saige?”

  I shake my head no. I really didn’t know. I could have guessed, though. Bruno never said it, but I guess I could tell. It was just easier to think he was healthy again.

  “Are you going to be okay?” My mom asks, coming over to my side of the table and wrapping her arms around me.

  “I’ll be fine.” I say.

  Pretending just got a little bit harder.

  THREE

  Whenever Bruno was first diagnosed with cancer last year, I was mad he didn’t tell me. That’s really selfish, huh? To be mad at someone for not telling you they might die. I feel bad looking back, but I was hurt he didn’t trust me enough to let me know.

  I remember the day it happened. He had promised to Skype with me that night. We hadn’t been talking as much as we normally do at the time (and now I know it was because he was getting tested). The day before he was diagnosed with Leukemia, he had promised to Skype with me. He told me he missed me and had lots to tell me. He made plans to teach me key notes on the guitar and sing me one of the sappy love songs that I like so much. I joked that he needed to sing in English so I could actually understand the words. He promised he would.

  The months leading up to that day, Bruno had been more tired than usual. I’m a night person and I’d always get mad when he’d fall asleep early, considering he used to be a night owl, too. I thought it was him just not wanting to talk to me. The only time he ever told me about him getting tested was when we had plans to hang out and he couldn’t come. He told me his white blood cells were down and he needed to see why.

  I thought about joking about it being cancer. The only reason I would ever even think of joking about something so serious was because I never in a million years would think Bruno (or anyone I know) would be diagnosed with it. I had read countless books about children getting cancer. I knew all the signs. But I ignored them when they happened to Bruno. I was such a bad friend.

  The day we were supposed to Skype, he never logged on. I waited around all night. I didn’t fall asleep until 5:30am. I wrote him an email that I know he’d receive on his phone. I was so angry that he’d ditch me. So hurt that he’d skip out on the one day he promised to be there.

  I woke up with the next day with a text on my phone. “Saige, I’m sorry,” it read, “but I was diagnosed with cancer and I’m in the hospital starting chemo.”

  I didn’t reply all day. I didn’t say anything at all until the next evening. I was in a trance. My parents didn’t even find out that Bruno was sick until two days later when my brother told them. When I finally responded, I wrote him a long, heartfelt email and even wrote him some snail-mail letters that he could receive in the hospital. I would have sent flowers, but they weren’t allowed on his floor. I guess the smell of life was too much for the people who could only smell death.

  Last spring seems far away. But sometimes, it seems like it just happened. Almost loosing Bruno weighs heavy on my mind every day, as I know it does for his mom. It even affected my parent’s to know that it could happen to their children, too.

  I can’t go through that again. But more than that, I don’t want Bruno to go through what he did again. Cancer isn’t fun. It makes your body do things you never thought it could. And no, I don’t mean jump over a high beam or backflip off a high dive. It makes you feel disgusting and tired all the time. Some people even say it makes you feel dead when you’re not even dead. How could medicine that was supposed to keep you from dying make you feel like you’re not even living?

  Bruno is the most religious person I know. He’s also very optimistic. Which is why it broke my heart when I heard him say: “I wonder if the chemo is doing my body more bad than good. Is taking chemo even worth it?”

  I lived for the day when he would be off the medicine. When the doctor’s would tell him that he’s all better and he doesn’t need to feel bad anymore. I just wanted everything to be the way it used to be. I waited my whole life for someone like Bruno, it seemed unfair that as soon as I would get him death could take him away. I was so naïve that I didn’t know things would be changed forever.

  Once chemo was done and Bruno was feeling more like the old, pre-cancer Bruno, I asked to go to the doctor’s meeting with his family. At first they objected. Not because I wasn’t close enough the Castino’s to go, but because they wanted to protect me from getting dissapointed. But I pleaded to go, and finally they gave in.

  Doctor’s really tick me off. That day I was madder than I’ve ever been. More mad than the day my brother broke my limited edition N’Sync Holiday tape back in ’99. I was expecting the doctor to make it all better. After he had poked, prodded, and hurt Bruno for so long, I think it’s only fair for him to tell Bruno that he’s perfectly fine again and to go back to being the Bruno everyone loved.

  But he didn’t.

  “Even though your cancer is gone for the time being,” he said, “you aren’t truly cured until you have no cancer cells for five years. The cancer could come back before then, which is why we need you and the people close to you to keep a look out for the signs. Don’t hesitate to come in for a checkup when bruise’s show up where they shouldn’t be, or when you feel tired like you did before.”

  If Mr. Castino hadn’t been blocking my escape from the door, I would have run out right then. How could a doctor say that? How could months of feeling worse than death still mean Bruno wasn’t cured?

  Bruno’s mom looked like she was let down, too. Bruno’s father did all the talking about paying off the bills, and who to contact if the signs occurred again. Bruno just sat and starred. When he caught me looking at him, he titled his head and smiled. He didn’t have curls, then. The chemo had taken them all.

  “Amore Vinci Omnia” he mouthed to me.

  That’s my favorite saying from a book we had to read for advanced English. He remembered because it’s one of the things I wrote to him in my heartfelt email the day after he told me he had cancer.

  He’s never told me he loved me. Not then and not now. I’ve never said it either. But we love to love. Even if we’ve never been in love, we’re always on the lookout for it. I’m a sucker for anything romantic. I know he is, too, even if we don’t show it.

  Thinking of my English class leads me over to my bookshelf. I pull out several novels, searching for “The Canterbury Tales”. I can’t find it anywhere. I look under my bed and atop my dresser. I move clothes around in my closet, even though I have no idea why it would be there. It isn’t. I go back to my shelf and search for my other favorite book of poems. I can’t find that either. I’m about to call for my mom (because mom’s always know where everything is), when I hear the doorbell ring.

  I wait for my brothers to yell “I got it!” or “Bye!” if they’re expecting somebody, but I just hear silence. My mom is usually so inviting of any guest, but I don’t hear her soft voice of “hello, how are you’s” either. The doorbell rings again.

  “I’m coming!” I call, bounding down the stairs.

  Without even looking through the peephole, I yank the door open. Standing on my doorstep with the same superman backpack he uses for just about everything is Alex.

  “Hiya, Saige!” He says, smiling up at me.

  I look at the street, expecting to see his mom’s car, but the street’s bare.

  He walks past me and dumps his blanket and backpack on the floor. “Want to play trucks?” He asks, digging in his pockets and pulling out toy cars.

  “Those are cars, silly.”

  “Mommy wouldn’t let me bring my monster trucks.”

  I lay the car rug that used to belong to my brothers on the floor. I made my mom still keep it because it’s pretty cool. It had its own little city on a rug and you can
go just about anywhere you want in the comfort of your own home. It’s good I made my mom keep it, Alex loves it.

  I bend down and start running a toy car around the streets of Rug City. I listen to Alex’s sound effects and think of how cool it has to be a little kid. He just comes into any home and starts to play, no worry in the world.

  “Where’s your mommy?” I ask, after playing for ten minutes.

  “She’s with B. She had to take him to get the Band-Aid.”

  When Bruno started going to the hospital a lot, Alex was too young to understand why. He just kept asking why Bruno never came back with any Band-Aids. When you’re five, I guess Band-Aids make everything better, and when you go to the hospital you’re expected to get the best Band-Aids. Mrs. Castino started keeping blue metallic Band-Aids in the car. Whenever Bruno would return from any type of treatment, he’d put a Band-Aid somewhere on his body. Sometimes it was his arm, sometimes his leg, or even at times his forehead. Then he’d point to it and say “all better!” just so Alex wouldn’t worry.

  I decide not to talk about Bruno or the hospital anymore. Instead, I ask Alex what he would like for dinner.

  “Chicken nuggets!” He screams.

  Every time he comes over, I cook him dinosaur-shaped nuggets. He’s come to really love them.

  “Yay! Chicken nuggets!” I chant.

  I ram my car into his and we play cars for a while longer. I am so lost in pretending to be kid again, back when skinned knees were the biggest pain you could ever get, and blue metallic Band-Aid’s really did make them all better, that I don’t notice my mother walk in. My brothers are close behind her, carrying more bags of groceries. She tells one of them to stick some nuggets in the oven, because we have guests. Hearing we have guests and we’re having nuggets for dinner let’s my brother’s know Alex is here.

  They start playing cars with us. One of my brothers even gets his old hot-wheel set from the same closet I got the Rug City carpet from. They start setting up, talking about the old toys we had in the 90’s, and asking Alex what new toys are hip these days. I let the boys play alone to go talk to my mom. I find her upstairs, getting wrapped boxes from under her bed.

  “What are those for?”

  “Oh, these are just some old toys of your brothers and some new ones I picked up at the toy store.”

  “For Alex?”

  “Yes. The Castino’s haven’t fully recovered from the financial burden of Bruno’s treatments from last year. And with the chance that he might need more costly medical care, this Christmas isn’t going to be a good one. I just wanted to help them out and get Alex a few things. I was over at their house and noticed his toy trucks are almost unusable anymore.”

  That’s probably why his mom wouldn’t let him bring them over. Riding in the car on top of Alex’s lap would make them even more beat up, and they are already having a tough time lasting till Christmas. I’m glad my mom is thinking of Alex. Usually the siblings of sick kids go forgotten. Bruno would never let that happen to Alex.

  “When were you over there?” I question, getting freaked that she knows something I don’t.

  “Your father was doing some business with Mr. Castino. Since we are in a good place to let people in on our business ventures, we thought it’d be a good idea to offer it to Mr. Castino.”

  I love my mom. She’s always thinking of ways to help others.

  A hear something fall downstairs. My mother pops hear head up, waiting for a cry, but nothing happens. They probably just knocked over the unbreakable lamps my mom has learned to purchase after having four boys. I stand to leave anyway, just to make sure, when my mom brings up the dance.

  “You aren’t going to your senior homecoming? You were so excited for it last year. You said you couldn’t wait till next year so you could have a chance at queen.”

  I grimace. She was right. I had always wanted the crown just as bad as most girls do. Wearing a tight ball gown, dancing in the spotlight with whatever cute guy won king. It would be a night to remember. I had been asked by around 15 guys by now, and I had turned them all down. I didn’t have a date and the dance was the following week. Besides, there was only one guy I wanted to go with.

  “I’ll see, Mom.”

  “I thought you’d say that. I asked Mrs. Castino if Bruno had a date for the dance. She said Bruno hasn’t been to a dance since Middle School, and with all the things he’s going through, a dance isn’t something he’d have time to plan for. I told her you’d been the same way, preoccupied with something I don’t know of, but that it’d be cute for you two to go together. I told her I’d make the arrangements and Bruno just had to show up.”

  Normally, most teenage girls would be mad if their mom set them up. But going to the dance with Bruno was an idea a really liked. A LOT. I smile and yell “That sounds great, Mom!” Just as we hear another crash and someone say “That one was you!” A second later, an argument breaks out.

  “I told your father to hide Grandma’s glass vase”, my mom mumbles, as we rush downstairs to pull apart bodies from a dog pile. Even as I’m sweeping up broken glass, I can’t help thinking about the dance. It will be so magical. The first dance I’ve been to with Bruno; and Bruno’s first dance, ever. Our senior homecoming, the dance that’s almost as big as Prom. It’ll be me and Bruno; happy together. We won’t have to pretend.

  FOUR

  “You look beautiful.”

  Bruno’s eyes stare up at me as I walk down my curving staircase. He awaits me at the bottom, surrounded by my parents, brothers, and my brothers’ dates. The pink-rose corsage he is holding steals my attention. Roses are so beautiful; I’m such a sucker for flowers. Flowers are the only thing just as pretty after death. Sure, they aren’t as colorful and look kind beaten, but they’re still beautiful because they’re death represents a good memory that ended and is now forever graved in the giver and owner of the flowers’ heart.

  No expense was spared on this dance. As soon as I came home from school and told her not only had I gotten the dance tickets, but that I also was on prom court; she rushed me out the front door and into the mall. We bought a brand new dress, make-up, strapless bra, jewelry and shoes. She even paid for my manicure and pedicure the day before. I really did miss all of this pampering. Being a girl does have its good times. But there is way more to life than just looking good.

  The flash of the camera brings me back into the present. Bruno’s hands are on my sides and we’re posing the way parents make you do for pictures. I’m so used to these same poses that my body reacts naturally. It doesn’t matter that I’ve done these same poses with multiple guys before dances before, with Bruno it felt different. It felt better.

  “We better get going before the food runs out at the buffet.” My brother calls down the hallway to make the picture-taking finish up. At the mention of food, the rest of the boys bid their goodbyes to the parents and head for the cars.

  My mom pulls me aside and adjusts my corsage. “You look so beautiful, baby,” she says, kissing my forehead.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “My little girl is really all grown up,” my dad adds, pulling me under his arm for a quick hug. It’s ironic that he would say that. I’ve been to countless dances, pageants and on dates since before I can remember. He’s never said that I looked all grown up. I guess when the chance of death occurs to parents you know, you appreciate the fact that you’re children are still growing up healthy.

  I wave goodbye to my parent’s and meet Bruno in his SUV. It’s been so long since I’ve been in a guy’s vehicle. Bruno had borrowed this car from a family friend. He wanted to use something that was more his then my car was. I can tell he did some intense cleaning and scrubbing in preparation for this date. His work really paid off, and I appreciate his thoughtfulness. But truthfully, I’d walk to the dance as long as I was with him.

  The drive on the way to the dance is anything but quiet. I turn the radio on to 95.1, “Call Me, Maybe” comes on and he changes the station to
one I’ve never heard before, a bunch of classical love songs start playing. He knows them all by heart and sings each one perfectly.

  “Look at how pretty it is outside.” He says, switching off the radio after finishing up his third song.

  The leaves are still on the trees. It’s nearing Thanksgiving and the trees look like they do in the spring. Through the corner of my eye I can see Bruno glancing over at me, but then I realize he’s looking past me; out of my window and out at the scenery.

  “It looks the way it always does.” I respond.

  “Yes, and it’s always beautiful.” His smile makes me agree.

  As soon as we get to the dance, Bruno offers to get me something to drink. I smile and thank him, not because I’m thirsty, but because I want a moment to compose myself. Besides, it’s too soon to use the ladies-room excuse. I have never been so giddy about a date or a dance in my life.

  Behind me, I hear my brothers enter. They’re rowdy and loud, slapping hands with everybody they can reach. Melanie approaches me and offers me a piece of gum. Sometimes its little acts of kindness from people that know I need it more than I do that make me really see how beautiful people are.

  She smiles weakly at me. “Have some fun tonight, girl.” She shakes her hips, imitating an old dance move I was known for doing to lighten the dances up. I bump her hips back as my brother approaches and whisks her away. She waves and I chump down harder on my gum.

  Bruno returns with a soda for me. I take a quick drink and then set it on the chair next to me. I grab his hand and lead him to the dance floor. I start going crazy and dancing all around. He stands still, shocked at first. A smile creeps onto his face and I feel the happiest I’ve ever been. It feels so good to make someone else happy, just by doing things that also makes you happy.

  “I haven’t seen you dance like this since two years ago,” he yells over the music.