Saturday, April 17, 1999  – 16 years ago at the Columbine senior Prom at the Denver Design Center​….

Cigarettes. A white stretch limo. A girl in a royal-blue prom dress and soft blonde curls. She’s holding his hand.

This was one of Dylan Klebold’s last nights.

Prom night for Columbine. Hardly the outsider, he was one of a dozen dressed-up kids who piled into a limo and dined at a ritzy LoDo restaurant. Then it was off to the dance at the Design Center on South Broadway in Denver.

Dylan wore a black tuxedo, a pink rosebud tucked into his lapel. His long wavy hair slicked back into an uncooperative ponytail.

His date was Robyn Anderson, now a valedictorian contender with her straight-A average. She asked him to the prom — just as friends.

In recent months, Robyn and Dylan’s relationship had been wobbling along that murky territory between friendship and romance.

Robyn later told a friend that Dylan behaved gentlemanly on prom night, complimenting her on her dress.

“They were holding hands and stuff,” said Jessica Hughes, one of the limo crowd.

Jessica sat next to Robyn and Dylan during dinner at Bella Ristorante. There was a lot of silly joking between them, playing with knives and matches.

“They were pretending to light themselves on fire,” Jessica said.

Dylan ate a big salad, followed by a seafood dish with shells, mussels she thinks, then dessert. “I was like, my Lord,” Jessica said.

Jessica and Dylan chatted about a party both planned to attend in a couple weeks, a reunion for kids who’d been in the gifted program in elementary school.

“He was all excited to see everyone,” Jessica said.

Dylan even agreed to bring pizza because he worked at Blackjack.

Back in the limo, no one was drinking anything stronger than Pepsi, Jessica recalled.

The car’s TV was off. The radio was turned to a hard-rock station and on so low the kids drowned out the music. They were being, well, normal goofy teens enjoying themselves. Cameras flashing. Lipstick smiles. Whisking through the night in a mirrored-ceiling car.

“We were flipping people off because the windows were so dark. We were making fun of people,” Jessica said.

Dylan even talked of everyone staying in touch after he left for college in three months.

“He was in a really great mood that night,” another friend in the limo, Monica Schuster, said.

His Future

Dylan’s prom group arranged for a limo, too.  Robyn Anderson drove out to pick him up on Saturday afternoon.  They shot pictures with his parents before meeting up with the five other couples to head into the city.  Robyn wore midnight-blue satin with cap sleeves and matching opera-length gloves.  She’d curled her hair in long blond ringlets, swept forward to bounce across her low-cut square neckline—a suburban variation on the classic Pre-Raphaelite style.

Dylan was giddy and beaming getting ready, all cleaned up for once, working to make everything look just right.  He tugged his shirt cuffs down, straightened his tuxedo jacket.  He’d gone with a traditional black tuxedo, bow tie slightly askew.  A small splash of color lightened up his lapel: a pink-tipped rosebud with a tiny ribbon the color of Robyn’s dress.  His hair was slicked back into a short ponytail that kept giving him grief.  He had shaved.  His dad followed him around with a camcorder, capturing every move.  Dylan looked at him through the lens: Dad, we’re going to laugh about this in twenty years.

They rode downtown in a big honking stretch with tinted windows and a mirrored ceiling.  Whoa!  Dylan held Robyn’s hand and complimented her on her dress.  The first stop was dinner at Bella Ristorante, a trendy spot in Lower Downtown.  It was a fun time: jokes and horseplay with table knives and matches, pretending to light themselves on fire.  Dylan devoured an oversized salad, a big seafood entrée, and dessert.  He gushed about the upcoming reunion for kids from the gifted program in elementary school.  It would be fun hooking up again with the childhood smarties.  Dylan had volunteered to use his Blackjack connection to get some pizzas.

They finished dinner early.  Dylan stepped out for a cigarette.  He asked his buddy Nate Dykeman to join him.  It was cold out, but nice anyway – a little quiet time, away from all the commotion.  Great food, great company,  first time in a limo for both of them.  “Everything is going perfect, as planned,” Nate said later.

Nate was even taller than Dylan, six-four, and considerably more attractive. He had classic features and dark, heavy eyebrows that accentuated his piercing eyes.  They talked more about reunions.  Everyone was scattering for college.  They talked about Dylan heading down to Arizona and Nate across the country to Florida.  Nate wanted to work for Microsoft.  What would they accomplish before reunion time rolled around?  They tossed around possibilities.  “No hints whatsoever that anything could possibly be wrong,” Nate recalled later.  “We were just having a great time. It’s our senior prom.   We’re enjoying it like we should.”

The short ride to the Design Center was a blast: hard rock jamming from the speakers, an adrenaline rush while they riffed on one another.  They made fun of pedestrians, flipped them off at random.  Nobody could see in; they could see out.  What a riot.

Dylan was in a great mood.  We’ve got to stay in touch, he insisted.  This group was too fun to let go.

Columbine, Chapter Six – Dave Cullen