High School Cruisers : Prom: Granada Hills seniors’ dance aboard a sailing vessel proves to be an amalgamation of subplots whose endings will become enshrined in nostalgia.

Nyia took her old boyfriend, only to leave him for another guy midway through the evening.

Jonathan took Emily on their first date, calling it a reward for enduring four years of high school.

Aly took Ian, and wished she had taken the night off.

These are some of the scenes played out by the Granada Hills High School Class of 1991. Saturday was the senior prom.

The event, as usual, was an evening of elegance, staged on a charter vessel off San Pedro Harbor. Shiny white limousines transported the rich-for-a-night teen-agers, decked in tuxedos and gowns, to celebrate their liberation from adolescence. After weeks of worrying, months of planning, and years of dreaming, the boat had finally arrived.

But the prom is not just an epic, and never was. It is an amalgamation of subplots whose endings, happy or sad, become enshrined in nostalgia.

And it happens only once.

“This is the night you’ve been thinking about since you were little,” said Prom Queen Breanne Bolingbroke, 17. “You see it on television and you watch your brothers and sisters go, and now it’s our turn.”

Their turn actually began last May when planning got under way for the annual rite of spring. The band, Rembrandt, and the boat, the California Hornblower, had to be secured a year in advance.

Luckily, the seniors didn’t feel pressured to match last year’s prom at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

“Last year’s class was a dud,” said faculty member Betty Zigler, the senior class sponsor. “They didn’t follow through on anything.”

From November through May, a student committee for the 1991 extravaganza met almost weekly to organize prom-related festivities ranging from the senior fashion show to the election of the prom court. For a theme, the committee chose “Night Under the Stars,” an appropriate description for a romantic rendezvous at sea.

Not everything ran smoothly. Students hoped to buy champagne glasses as permanent souvenirs, but because school administrators didn’t want it to appear that they were endorsing drinking, the students had to settle for glasses with candles inside.

Yet most of the pre-prom panic was reserved for the teen-agers who had tough decisions: Whom to ask? And when? And how?

The boys at Granada view asking girls out as an art form. The key is patience and a little luck.

“You have to wait for the right moment,” said Jordan Fisher, 17. “You have to wait long enough to get the best date you can, but if you wait too long, the girl you want is gone.” Jordan played it right, and got the girl he wanted.

The girls don’t care about patience. They want to be asked months in advance so that, instead of worrying about their dates, they can concentrate on more vital matters--their dresses.

“Guys wait until the last moment,” complained Nyia Berry, 18. “We can’t just go get our dress the day before.”

Nyia shouldn’t talk. She also waited until only a few weeks before the prom to pop the question. The first guy she asked had to study for college exams. The second, her boyfriend from sophomore year, Ron Young, 19, agreed to be her escort.

Nyia, meanwhile, went with her mom to purchase a dress. Girls want to make sure they get an original gown and many have them custom made. The worst thing is to find someone at the prom wearing your dress. A lot of shops keep track to help avoid that possibility.

At Topanga Plaza, Nyia cleverly maneuvered her way toward Nordstrom. “It won’t hurt,” Nyia said.

Her mother, Roberta Ricks, was defenseless. Proms mean a lot to mothers, too.

“My class didn’t have a prom,” said Ricks, who attended the High School for the Performing Arts in New York. “We voted not to have one. All of our friends were in Vietnam.”

Nyia didn’t take long to find her favorite at Nordstrom--a pink satin dress with elbow-length gloves. And, compared to a lot of dresses, it wasn’t too expensive--$178. Many girls said they were spending as much as $300 on their gowns, usually with parents footing the bill.

The cost of proms has skyrocketed in recent years, and this event would be no exception. Once all the expenses are factored in--prom tickets ($105 per couple), limousines, corsages, hotel, clothes, etc.--the night can wind up costing $300 to $600, a far cry from the days of crepe paper in school gymnasiums.

It has grown so prohibitively expensive for many, in fact, that the Los Angeles Board of Education in 1988 adopted a list of recommendations to reduce costs, such as students sharing limo rides with other couples, and holding more school fund-raisers to help defray costs for individual students.

The unwritten rule is that boys generally pay for everything, but if senior girls ask boys from other schools, the girls pay. Many teen-agers use hard-earned savings or borrow money from their parents.

“It will take me 10 years to pay them back,” said Sean Traver, 17, who spent about $500 on the evening. “It’s costing about $300 more than I thought it would. It’s drained my enthusiasm, but if I don’t go now, I’ll be flushing all that money down the toilet.”

But for most students, the price is secondary. This is an evening of a lifetime, and they’re not going to let anything spoil it. Even if that means going with a good friend, not a boyfriend or girlfriend.

“I wanted to go with Mr. Right,” said Kristina Miller, 17, “but as time went on, and I didn’t see Mr. Right, I realized it would be a lot more fun to go with a good friend because I’d be more comfortable. I wouldn’t care about impressing anyone, and there wouldn’t be expectations.”

Some students don’t mind having expectations. For them, the prom itself is less anticipated than the events afterward. In fact, for many the prom in recent years has become a weekend-long excursion; a lot of couples spend Saturday night at hotels and Sunday at Disneyland or Catalina Island.

Others, like Aly Cummings, 18, are just happy to have a date. For months, Aly expected to go with her boyfriend, seeing the evening as the official coronation of their relationship. But there was one problem:

They broke up.

So, instead, she asked Ian Hahm, 22, to be her escort. Ian, who would be attending a prom for the fourth straight year, has a girlfriend, but Aly didn’t mind. She didn’t want to stay home.

Neither did Jonathan Moskowitz, 17, who had no plans until he met Emily Murphy, 17, at a Beverly Hills party two weeks ago. They didn’t even have a chance to date once before the prom.

“People I never thought would get dates to the prom were getting ready to go,” Jonathan said, “and I didn’t think I was going. Then I met Emily. I see the prom as a reward for 17 years of putting up with your parents and putting up with high school.”

Not everybody, of course, has such high opinions of the event. Traditionally, anti-prom parties have been held by students wanting to make a different statement. Hillary Gillick, 16, a junior, seems to speak for that position.

“I have so many better things to do,” said Hillary, who planned to attend a party Saturday night. “I got a call from a guy who was so desperate that he started to ask people he didn’t even know. I don’t have any respect for proms. I don’t need a dress to be little Miss Perfect and go dancing on a boat with people just to make an impression.”

The evening had finally arrived. The long procession of white limousines presented the aura of a Hollywood premiere. Couples quickly jumped out of their vehicles to get in line, stopping repeatedly to praise each other’s elegant attire. Girls, as usual, admitted to dressing to impress other girls more than their dates.

Black is definitely the “in” color, as most girls opted for sexy--and relatively short--black dresses, each with its own look: Some had sequins, some were velvet, some strapless, some with capes.

As the girls waited, their dates collected the tickets for dinner and photographs. Jay Pruetz, 17, took out his wallet.

“I guess the paying is just about done,” said a relieved Jay. “Just the hotel room is left.”

Jordan, meanwhile, had hoped earlier to persuade his date to share the expenses, but after she offered to pay $100, he changed his mind. “I kind of felt guilty. This is the man thing to do.”

Altogether, 703 students boarded the Hornblower for their four-hour dinner cruise from San Pedro. “There are some people here I’ve never seen,” Jay said, “and I bet a lot of them go to our school.”

But, as expected, some last-minute glitches delayed their departure: One of the photographers taking prom pictures broke his camera. A few students had mistakenly waited for the ship at Long Beach. And one of the limos had electrical problems.

Half an hour later, everybody was on board. The theme from television’s “Love Boat” blared from the speakers, and the Hornblower took off.

Nobody sat for long. The idea was to mingle, look for friends and compare dresses and dates. The night they had dreamed about for years was finally here, and they weren’t going to enjoy it alone.

Aly, however, wasn’t enjoying it at all.

“I don’t want to be here,” she said. “I’d rather be home watching TV. Everything’s gone wrong.”

Somehow the arrangements with another couple had been messed up, and Aly had to pay overtime--$57 extra--for her limo. Worse, Ian now couldn’t stay overnight at the hotel, so she would have to make other plans.

Nyia, meanwhile, was prepared. Because Ron was headed to visit dance clubs in Mexico after the cruise, she arranged to meet another guy at the hotel after Ron left.

“I’m going to have fun,” she declared.

As the evening wore on, however, some of the reviews of the triple-decked 185-foot ship and the band weren’t very positive. Rembrandt, a Valley-based veteran of the bar mitzvah/party circuit, played upstairs while recorded rap and dance music blared from speakers on the lower deck.

The boat: “I thought this was supposed to be a cruise ship,” said Sean. “It’s more like a whale-watching boat.”

The band: “This is the newer stuff,” said Jay, referring to the recorded music. “This is what people can dance to, not that stuff upstairs. And here, their voices aren’t cracking.”

But these were the evening’s sideshows; the main event centered around the couples. Students didn’t even notice that the boat had accidentally substituted the glaze used for apple strudel for Italian dressing on some salads.

Most people seemed to be having fun, including Jonathan.

“I’m so glad I came,” he said, as Emily put her hand on his shoulder. It looks as if they will keep dating.

It also looks good for Erin Hanson, 17, and her date, Tim Fewless, 20, a Pierce College student. This, too, was their first substantial time together. Their parents knew each other, but they had met only a week earlier. They went for yogurt just to make sure they were compatible enough to spend the prom together. They were.

Late in the evening, after many of the students had left the ship, Erin and Tim sat alone at a table, almost oblivious to everything around them.

Some weren’t so lucky.

“This is an evening from hell,” said one girl who wouldn’t give her name. She sat and stared in one direction, her date in the other.

Midway through the evening, the prom court was announced. First, the names of the princes and princesses were read to the crowd, with ovations for everyone. Then the prom king and queen were named, generating even louder applause.

“I’m so shocked,” said Breanne. “I never expected to win.”

Jaimie Alonge, 17, was selected prom king.

Shortly after 10 p.m., the Hornblower docked to let off anyone who preferred to resume the evening on land. About half got off, while the rest stayed on for another two hours of cruising.

Staging the prom on a ship is much better, said Zigler. “Before, when the prom was held indoors,” she said, “a lot of people would just come and go at any time. This way, it keeps them in one place, and parents like that.”

For the last two hours, couples danced the night away. They held each other tight for the slow tunes, and held nothing back on the fast songs.

Shortly after midnight, the boat docked again, and everybody disembarked.

They collected their souvenir glasses, and headed into the night, into the future. The long-awaited prom was history. Only the rest of their lives remained.

“This is kind of sad,” said Ressa Lindsey, 18. “As a group, we’ve been together for a long time, all through high school, and you look forward to the prom for so long. And, then, in one night, it’s over.”