Anxious Steps Are Taken Before the Biggest Dance : Culture: Youths get ready for prom night, an event that can hit the heart and the wallet hard.

High school is hard enough.

Yet this month, teen-agers all over Ventura County are choking down their Angst as they summon up the guts to ask the toughest question of the year: Will you go with me to the prom?

From Newbury Park High School’s dance April 16 through Royal High School’s fete on June 4, prom season hits kids straight in the heart--and in the wallet.

Even as the gala promises a bright, musical swirl of glamour, it threatens a stab of rejection at one of the most vulnerable times of adolescence.

Some teen-agers will throw hundreds of dollars at the evening, trying to ensure their prom night will be the most memorable of their young lives, only to walk away with little more than pain and empty pockets, adult counselors say.

Yet despite the tension and cost, hundreds of juniors and seniors at every high school in the county are already hip-deep in prom plans, preparing for their big night.

“It’s just one of those special times for students, and I like to encourage every senior to go,” said Toni Garubo, a guidance counselor at Adolfo Camarillo High School.

“It’s one of those moments that, in hindsight, you’ll say at your 10th high school reunion, ‘Gosh, I wish I’d gone,’ ” she said. “It’s a moment in time. And we don’t get too many of those.”

Heather Weaver, 18, a Simi Valley High senior, agreed.

“It’s one of the things you look forward to all your life,” she said, watching friends clad in classy tuxes and prom dresses parade down a fashion show runway last week before hundreds of whooping classmates. “When you get into high school, that’s what everyone talks about, going to the prom.”

Expectations and prices run high.

A boy may spend $200 to $300 to line up tickets, limo, tuxedo, flowers and a ritzy restaurant.

A girl may spend nearly $200 on a prom gown and languish for weeks waiting to be invited by the boy she wants.

Some teen-agers are left out or forced to accept charity--free tickets, loaner dresses and borrowed tuxes--because they just can’t afford the biggest night of their high school career.

And those lucky enough to be in love already with that special boy or girl may see their fragile relationships crushed, adult counselors say, by the pressure of hard reality against their dreams.

In some cases, adult counselors said, couples may even break up before the prom and are forced to go through the motions of attending for fear they will lose money or face.

“There’s such a buildup in terms of expectations,” said Sara Davis, a guidance counselor at Royal High School in Simi Valley.

“I see kids in tears because for one reason or another, something doesn’t work out. . . . They fantasize a romantic evening with a guy that they really like,” she said. “They’re going to be so beautiful in their dress or so handsome in their tux--and it doesn’t happen. The guys are paling around with their buddies, or the girls with their girlfriends. A lot of the time, the reality doesn’t meet the expectation.”

The worrying starts early.

Thousand Oaks High School’s prom is on May 21, five weeks away.

But senior A.D. Mathur, 17, is already stressed out about who he should ask, remembering how he stuttered and tripped while asking a girl to the Senior Ball earlier this year.

“It’s really scary,” A.D. said, pondering his prom prospects last week during lunch hour. “They could laugh at you.”

He recalled, “This girl who’s a friend of mine was telling me to ask this girl I really like, and I said, ‘No, ‘cause I’ll get rejected.’ She said, ‘After the first time, it gets easier and the pain wears off.’ ”

A.D. added: “But I don’t know about that.”

Shannon Hermanson, his schoolmate, tried to buck him up.

“I like it if the guy’s nervous when he’s asking you . . . It’s kind of cute,” said Shannon, 16, a junior who has already lined up tickets with her boyfriend. “If the guy’s all confident, like ‘Hey, you want to go to the prom with me?’ then he’s probably all full of himself.”

Yet nowadays, the pressure of formally asking a date--where boys must ask and girls must wait--is no longer a hard-and-fast rule.

“It isn’t a boy-ask-girl issue any more,” said Debbie Armstrong, junior class adviser at Buena High School in Ventura.

“Girls ask boys a lot more now. We’re in the ‘90s. Girls don’t wait to be asked, they fish around more,” Armstrong said. “We have a lot of kids that do group dates, where there are two, three, four couples that go together.”

Some girls are even offering to help pay for the evening.

“Before, the guy would pay for everything,” said Teresita Gomez, school psychologist at Oxnard High. “And it seems to be a little more equal now.”

The clothes and tickets alone are a lot to pay for.

Tuxedos rent for $45 to $80, even with prom discounts offered by most formal wear shops.

Traditional tux styles are big this year, with wildly patterned accessories such as paisley and floral ties and cummerbunds, said Monika Newman, manager of Gingiss Formalwear in The Oaks mall.

Prom gown prices shoot easily past $100, and some teen-agers spend as much as $500 for a gown.

But most prom gowns sell for $150 to $240, and girls this year are fond of long strapless sheaths in velvet with long satin gloves above the elbow, said Imelda Zaboski, owner of Beaux & Belles in Oxnard.

Prom ticket prices range from $40 per couple for Buena High School’s dinnerless dance on April 30 at the Ventura Theater to more than $100 per couple (without student activities membership) for Simi Valley High School’s May 14 dinner-dance at the Woodland Hills Marriott Hotel.

Rented limousines have become popular with prom-goers who want to ride in style with a bunch of friends, or parents who want their kids to let someone else bear the risk of driving.

Limo rentals can cost around $65 an hour, said Bob DeMaio, general manager of Shoreline Limousines in Newbury Park.

Then most youths jack up the price tag even further, paying for flowers, photos and post-prom parties. Some boys will buy their dates dinner out at a fancy restaurant beforehand, even when their proms already feature dinner.

Two years ago, one couple cruised up to Camarillo High School’s prom in a horse-drawn carriage, he wearing a fully tailored tuxedo and she in a gown that looked as though it came from Beverly Hills, recalls guidance counselor Toni Garubo.

“It’s like one-upmanship,” she said. “You can’t go to a prom for less than probably two or three hundred dollars.”

Jean Ferguson, a family therapist in the Conejo Valley with a teen-age daughter of her own, called the prom “a multihundred-dollar experience.

“The kids at school tend to set up the whole thing without administrators taking the lead, and there’s not enough guidance about keeping it affordable for everybody,” Ferguson said. “I think it’s been increasing each year.”

The price may even shove some kids out of the prom altogether.

“I know that there’s a lot of ‘Oh well, that’s OK, I don’t have to go’--a lot of sour-grapes kind of thing,” said Gomez, the Oxnard High School psychologist. “But I’m sure if that’s important to you, it’s disappointing” not to have the money, she said.

Most students recognize how absurd the price can get.

“I think the girls who spend hundreds of dollars on their dresses and rent limos and get $100 hairdos and makeup is a little bit excessive,” said Laura Julian, 17, student body president at Royal High.

“For some people, it is blown out of proportion, but most of my friends are pretty realistic about it,” she said.

Some schools try to help teen-agers bridge the money gap.

Camarillo High holds a candy sale. Students can put $6 for every box of candy bars they sell toward the cost of their prom tickets.

And Buena High School gives out prom tickets and lends dresses and tuxedos to boys and girls who cannot pay the tab, said Debbie Armstrong, the school’s junior class adviser.

Armstrong said students who find themselves too poor for prom night must be referred to her by teachers and counselors. She then provides the tickets, sending boys to formal-wear shops that offer free tuxedo rental and the girls to a school storage room full of prom dresses that have been donated to the school.

“I’m the only one on campus that knows that student has a free ticket,” she said. “Even their date wouldn’t know.”

But once they are in--dressed to the nines and ready to dance--most teen-agers have a blast, said Sergio Castellanos, guidance counselor at Santa Paula High School.

“We get a kick out of it as adults,” said Castellanos, who is chaperoning Santa Paula High’s May 14 prom. “It’s kind of a different side of kids. Usually, they’re relaxed on a day-to-day basis. At the prom, they feel they have to be on their best behavior, and their social skills will be tested. The young man takes the young lady out to dinner--it’s more of the adult world.”

Kevin Sergey, 18, says he will probably go to the senior prom his Simi Valley High School class is throwing--even if he has to go alone.

The tickets, clothes, flowers and limousine will be expensive, he knows.

And the girl he really wanted to take turned him down, leaving him still looking for a date.

But it is important, said the handsome teen-ager, watching three tux-clad classmates at the school’s fashion show as they pantomimed “romancing” a girl in a sheath dress of spangled cobalt blue.

“It’s really important,” Sergey said a little sadly. “It’s the last thing you’re really going to remember from your senior year. You pretty much have to go.”