“Gorgeous,” Julie Scanlan told her daughter as she pushed aside other dresses on the department-store rack and placed the scooped-back floral number in the teenager’s arms. “I think this is the one. What do you think?”
Amy ran her fingers over the fabric, then pressed an edge of the silky dress to her eyes.
“Oh, it feels wonderful, Mom,” the teenager said. “What color is it?”
Prom is Friday at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind in Colorado Springs, and the 18-year-old with light-brown hair, tinted glasses and a round face is feeling an uneasiness deep in her stomach.
It’s late on a weekend afternoon at Southwest Plaza mall near Littleton and Amy, the reigning homecoming queen, has the pink floral dress, matching hair clips, silver shoes – and no date.
“But I have a plan,” said Amy, a Denver native with junior rheumatoid arthritis and very limited vision in only one eye. “You know, there’s this guy.”
The guy comes in the form of curly- haired Austin Balaich, a 17-year-old junior from Elbert, a prominent member of the deaf academic bowl team and the No. 1 catch on three other girls’ lists.
Girls swoon at the mention of his name.
“Austin,” student Catherine Worrall, 17, said through an American Sign Language translator. “Very nice, very cute. There’s some competition for him.”
Catherine owns a black-and- white strapless gown that she bought for $150 at J.C. Penney. It’s so top-secret, she said, even her closest friends have no idea what it looks like.
“I don’t want anyone copying me,” the teenager signed, only half joking.
So far, the junior from Colorado Springs has turned down one prom offer, with someone she liked, in favor of another possibility.
“There’s an optional boy,” she added.
Catherine has entered the Austin sweepstakes.
“Yes,” she said
Joshua Hurt heard the melodic voice at his side and slowly turned his body. To him, she was just a shadow. A little closer, and he could make out the girl’s rail-thin body.
His hands began to sweat. He pulled his white cane closer.
Melissa Riveros felt the 18-year-old boy inching toward her. Her heart raced.
Melissa likes Joshua. She has had a crush on him since their meeting at a summer camp when she first heard his booming baritone voice. He is from Grand Junction; she is from Colorado Springs.
Joshua has a good heart, the 16-year-old girl thought. He wants to help other students in class. And he is always polite.
The bits of light and shade fluttered in and out of Joshua’s vision.
An uncomfortable moment passed as the two stood together. No movement. Just silence.
Finally, mercifully, the words poured from Joshua’s mouth.
“Would it be OK with your parents if I went to prom with you?” he asked Melissa.
“Yes,” she said, giggling.
She could not see the nervousness on his face, his blue eyes, his broad nose or the fuzz that clung to his chin.
She didn’t have to.
“I’m sure he’s handsome,” Melissa said later. “He’s so kind.”
She had been waiting for the prom invitation all semester. “A Night Under the Stars,” the prom’s theme, was burned into her mind.
Though she has never seen someone dance, never seen a fancy dress, teachers told her that prom would be a magical event.
She and Joshua could hold hands and sway to the music. She could touch his face, maybe feel his soft hair, feathered up front, combed straight back on the sides.
If only she knew how long Joshua had waited to ask. How he sometimes lost track of schoolwork thinking about her – about the question.
“She has the sweetest voice,” Joshua said, closing his eyes. “I’m over the moon about her.”
Joshua has dated before. Prom will be Melissa’s first time out alone with a boy.
“It’s exciting, and my mom says it’ll be a good experience,” Melissa said. “I think she’s a little scared, though. Not me.”
Just friends
Only a handful of days remained until prom, and Amy was still dateless.
She pulled Austin aside after class one day, and, speaking with her hands, asked him out. She never got an answer.
“I asked him as a friend,” she said.
But Austin was unsure. No matter what she said, the friendly outing sounded like a date to him.
As Amy left one classroom, Austin was in another, wondering what he should say to her. He had other possible dates, but could he turn down Amy?
“She’s a friend, that’s all,” he signed through a translator.
He shrugged.
“I don’t know what I should do. I might go alone. I might not.”
Staff writer Robert Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-1282 or rsanchez@denverpost.com.
