So They’re All, Whoa! Kobe!

Why, oh why, the television reporter was asking earnestly, is everyone so excited?

There was a long pause, followed by a teen’s piercing stare that says, unmistakably, You dork.

“Um . . . it’s Kobe Bryant,” replied 17-year-old John Rodriguez.

Like, duh.

Huntington Beach’s Marina High School was afire Friday with word that one of its own, Vanessa Laine, is preparing to marry the man who may be Southern California’s most eligible bachelor.

The Laker superstar, 21, confirmed after practice Thursday that he is engaged to the 18-year-old Marina High senior.

A day later, the inevitable television vans swarmed a corner of the school, going live, interviewing scores of students who unwittingly strolled off campus for lunch. There was even a television helicopter overhead, taking gripping video of the chaos it created.

There were dozens of rumors: She will now be home-schooled (true), they are going to skip prom in June (probably true), they are going to Italy instead (unconfirmed), the school has asked her to stop wearing her seven-carat engagement ring (not true). And there were tales, many of them, of Kobe sightings. Most of them went something like this, from junior Erika McWilliams:

“I met him. I swear. I saw his forehead when he came to pick her up at school. I was all, Whoa! And I ran up to the car and I was all, Ohmigod! And he was all, Hi! And I was all, It’s all about Kobe! I was shaking.”

At Laine’s modest yellow-and-green home in Huntington Beach, her grandfather sighed heavily Friday afternoon as a reporter approached the door (Laine lives with her grandparents).

Yes, said the grandfather, Robert Laine, they are engaged. No, they probably will not be going to prom, though they had considered it. Yes, she has been taken out of school “because of the notoriety.” And yes, she is thrilled.

“When you are young, you are very idealistic,” he said. “She seems happy.”

And then, of course, there is the ring. The Ring. The Rock.

Even Marina High School Principal Carol Osbrink, who remained tight-lipped about the mania, refusing to utter Vanessa Laine’s name, was marveling about the ring.

“All the diamonds I’m used to seeing are little things you kind of flick in the sun,” she said.

Not this one. Not unless you want to go blind. Seven carats, according to Sandy Fredlund, manager of an Orange County Zales jewelry store, is the size of a nickel, maybe even a quarter, and probably cost about $100,000.

“I was thinking about that ring all the way into work this morning,” Fredlund said. “The largest thing I have in my store is a two-carat. And that’s big. This is huge.”

Huge in so many ways, it seems--a romantic bombshell the likes of which Southern California hasn’t seen since Magic Johnson married Cookie Kelly in 1991 or Annette Bening bagged Warren Beatty a year later.

The couple met when Bryant, who has an interest in rap and videos, stopped by a music video shoot where Laine was working as a background model, according to Marina High drama teacher Robert Rotenberry.

Laine, who recently turned 18, is active in Marina’s theater club but has no acting aspirations. Rotenberry described her as “very pleasant, very nice, extra-outgoing.” She has completed advanced math classes, such as Algebra II, and diligently went about her work as a teacher’s aide, according to teachers--running errands, taking roll and performing other duties. She is an aspiring makeup artist and sometime video model.

“She’s a pretty cool chick,” said Ricky Avila, 17, a junior who shared a math class with her.

According to acquaintances, a photo of the couple kissing is affixed to the binder that holds her class notes.

“She never showed off. She said to me once, ‘Here’s a picture of my boyfriend,’ and I looked at it and thought ‘I know that guy,’ ” Rotenberry said. “She was just really proud of him.”

Family and friends are working hard to protect Laine’s privacy. Beyond sparse details, Robert Laine would not discuss the couple’s relationship and was hoping the attention would wear off soon.

“I didn’t ask for any of this,” he said with a smile. “When you are a celebrity, it is a double-edged sword.”

And the ring?

“Where I went to school, you didn’t wave around a ring like that,” he said. “You’d get your arm taken off.”

Asked whether he anticipates that life will change now that his granddaughter is engaged to a superstar, he seemed incredulous.

“My life’s not going to change,” he said. “I’m bought and paid for. I’m an old man.”

To some, of course, the hype was so out. The buzz moves fast in high school.

“Everybody’s getting all pissy about it,” said Michele Antone, 19, a senior. “It’s getting old.”

Still, even if life at Marina High has changed for only a few days, Vanessa Laine’s life is about to change forever. Bryant, ending his fourth year with the Lakers after making the leap from high school directly to the NBA with relative ease, recently signed a six-year contract extension reportedly worth $70 million.

The contract will take him through the 2004-05 season, when he will be 26. She will be 23.

“Maybe this is what she needs,” Avila said. “Maybe this will make her famous.”

Too late.

“There’s nobody in there who isn’t talking about it,” said Graham Finochio, 16, a Marina High junior. “We all heard about it for a while: Yeah, Kobe Bryant is going out with this chick, and he sends her flowers and stuff. And I was like, Yeah, right. And then it turns out to be true! And I was like, Whoa, Dude!”

Times staff writer Rene Lynch contributed to this report.