By RACHEL SAUER
The Daily Sentinel
One more spritz of sparkle spray, and you believe in magic.
So, Nichole Biehle, 21, angled her face left, then angled it right, her unwavering eyes never leaving the reflection before her. Her long, hazlenut-brown hair was gathered into soft, loose curls behind her head.
And she was glowing — not just from the glitter that stylist Stephanie Booker had generously misted over her, but from the roses that bloomed up from her toes, through her fluttering heart, all the way to her shining cheeks.
“Do you like it?” Booker asked.
Nichole nodded wordlessly.
Just believe. There’s magic still.
And she hadn’t even danced a step yet! This was the exquisite build-up, the delicious anticipation, to Sunday night’s Project Hope of Colorado Prom. The sixth annual event, held at Two Rivers Convention Center in downtown Grand Junction, was one of the best nights of the year for people with physical and mental disabilities. An estimated 560 people, including prom escorts, attended. Ages 16 and older were invited.
Funded entirely by community donations, free to those attending, it was glitter and satin, cummerbunds and bowties, freestyle and funky chicken, and spinning until the lights blurred, because that joy has to go somewhere.
But first, a little girl time. Which is to say, makeup and nail polish!
“Do you want more red?” Lyndsi Johnston asked Teresa Carnahan, 51, makeup brush poised over Teresa’s lowered eyelid.
“Yeah, please,” Teresa replied, so Lyndsi, a volunteer from Fellowship Church, rubbed the brush back into the little square of peony-red eyeliner and swiped a dramatic streak.
Teresa held a small hand mirror in front of her face and beamed. Her dress was red, her socks were red, so that was perfect.
It was a Day of Beauty at Fellowship Church, an annual tradition before prom. Volunteers from the church wielded curling irons and compacts in a frenzy of hair/nails/makeup for more than three dozen women.
There was chocolate, of course, but more importantly, there was glitter.
“Are you ready for some sparkle?” Jennifer Goakes asked Angel Brewer, barely waiting for an answer before daubing glittery pink eye shadow at the corners of Angel’s eyes.
Angel, of course, had been ready. Because her dress? A frilly, frothy confection in pink and white, fit for a princess.
“This is their night to shine,” said Michele Ferguson, an administrator for Project Hope of Colorado and one of the prom’s founders. “It’s a night for people who maybe didn’t get to go to prom, or who might be overlooked, it’s for them to feel special.”
So, it was shine and sparkle and flowers in their hair — donated by Martha Gonzales — for the ladies, and tuxedos with vivid cummerbunds and bowties for the gentlemen.
After getting gorgeous at Fellowship Church, a group of Mesa Developmental Services clients trooped back to MDS to race through some Little Caesars — they were very excited, and eating seemed especially dull by that point — and hurry into the ladies room to change.
“This is a nice dress,” Ella Amigo said as she wriggled out of her T-shirt, being careful of her grey-streaked, curly up-do, and shimmied into a long-sleeved coral number that highlighted her flushed cheeks.
With a little help from Donna Jean Ganss, a direct support professional with MDS, Angel got zipped into her perfect pink dress, got the lace fluffed around her neck just so, and then stood staring into the bathroom mirror.
A sprightly pink flower nestled in her short brown hair above her ear. Her eyes behind her glasses were softly rimmed with eyeliner, and they were glowing. She started and stared, a tiny, delighted smile teasing her mouth.
She looked so beautiful. And she was ready for prom.
So, with the gentlemen who’d arrived while they were primping, they drove to the convention center and ascended the stairs.
They promenaded down an aisle of pink, black and cream balloons, and then into the ballroom.
Well. It was magical.
There were pink feathers on the shining chandeliers and bundles of balloons above every table. There were professional prom photos, and nobody minded the lines. There was a dinner — something with noodles, maybe? — but who could even taste it? There was a dance floor.
That’s what they’d come for. A few brave souls even attempted a little something to the drab, long-hair music playing during dinner. Come on! Let’s dance!
And then…”It’s prom!” Ferguson exclaimed into a microphone. And the most welcome LMFAO has ever been, the best they’ve ever sounded, lured dozens and dozens to the dance floor like tributaries to a river.
It was all flash and shimmer — pink satin with pink Mary Janes, cummerbunds migrating north while suspenders headed south, white socks, patent shoes, velvet and ringlets and costume jewelry, jumping and twirling and smiling.
The smiles! Cheek-rounding, face-consuming, brilliant, toothy, transcendent smiles.
And they danced, and they danced, and they danced.