Chapter 27
The girls were chatting with their fans, when Paige came over to them. "Just had a call from Brian, he wanted to remind you that the Press Conference is in just under 30 minutes."
Whilst Linda had briefly met the press earlier in the day, Brian had suggested they held a more formal press conference, allowing them to not only describe what had happened last night, but more importantly to reassure their fans that the tour was still continuing, albeit with a few minor tweaks.
----
Ben, Andre, Paige and Carol walked into the meeting room in the hotel, where the press conference would soon be happening.
"Hi everyone! I'm Paige, this is Ben - CJDL's assistant manager - and Andre - Northern Girls manager - and Carol, who is, of course, a member of CJDL. We thought we'd run things today in 3 sections: the first will be a simple statement by Ben, summarising what's happened in the last 24 hours, plus how this affects the tour, which will probably what the main channels need. For the second bit, we thought you'd probably like to hear from both Dianne and Linda, who were involved in the accident yesterday, and Carol has offered to be the interviewer - so from your perspective, a neutral person. The final bit will be for the local press and TV to do short interviews for the local news tonight. In terms of questions for Carol to ask... clearly she'll try and cover most aspects, but if you have anything specific to ask, then just write them on one of the pads, and pass them to me. After the main bit of the interview, we can add in any extra questions that come up. How does that sound to you all?"
There were a few 'housekeeping' questions, including one about access to Dianne's pictures, but between them, they answered them, and a couple of the reporters had a short word with Carol.
"Well, if you're all ready, let's bring everyone in!" said Paige. Ben had already gone out, to get the others. First in was Linda, pushed in her wheelchair by Ziggy, followed by all the others, who sat in the chairs around her.
"Good afternoon everyone!" started Ben. "As has been reported in the news already, as Dianne and Linda were on their way back here from a visit to Aberdeen town centre, they were involved in a substantial accident, when a large van crashed into the side of their taxi. Dianne was able to quickly call the emergency services, who were all onsite fairly quickly. Both Dianne and the taxi driver were, in principle, unhurt, but Linda has suffered a fractured lower leg."
He paused for a moment.
"Whilst Dianne was able to join us back here for last night's slightly delayed performance, the girls had to play without Linda, who was being treated at the hospital... although she did manage to return in the last minutes of the show, and sing 'Friends' with the girls - much to the joy of the fans. To be honest, the idea of cancelling last night's show hardly entered our heads, and I am very happy to announce that the tour will continue as planned, although there will be a few changes made to the show to accommodate Linda's clear lack of mobility."
Another short pause.
"The girls are all looking forward to entertaining their fans again tonight, here in Aberdeen!"
Another tiny pause. "Any questions?" There were a few questions, which Ben was able to answer. "Thank you all, I'll hand over to Paige and Carol now..."
Paige went to the front. "So, 'Eight Girls with Braces' are currently in the middle of their 'Orthodontics Tour', and currently we are here in Aberdeen. The tour will continue with performances in Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool, before we cross the Irish Sea for performances in Dublin and Belfast. After that, the tour will move to France, and will cover much of Europe. 'Eight Girls with Braces' is made up from two bands who have joined together for this tour: CJDL and Northern Girls... so let's meet them..."
Linda started: "Hi, I'm Linda, I'm the one with my leg in plaster!" The other seven introduced themselves too.
"So, I'm now going to hand over to Carol: she's going to chat with Dianne and Linda about what happened."
The various reporters had written down a load of fairly obvious questions, which Carol had expected, but there were a couple she'd not thought of.
"So, Dianne, what had you two been doing in town yesterday?" she started. Over the next few minutes, Dianne explained that they had been in town shopping, chatted with some fans, then got some dinner, then went on to explain a few of the details of the accident itself.
"Now, Linda, Dianne said you were in pain...."
"Yes, a LOT of pain, and I really do need to thank Dianne for staying with me: just having her there next to me helped so much!"
"No problem!" interrupted Dianne, "That's what friends are for!"
Linda continued explaining about what had happened to her, and how she was given the 'happy gas' and so on.
"Of course, back here at the arena, it was past 7pm, and we were wondering where Linda and Dianne were... after all, we were due to start at 7:30! Jenny, you called Linda..."
"Yes, I did, and was a bit surprised to answered by a police lady, who used words like 'accident' and 'ambulance', but then passed me to Dianne, who explained to everyone what had happened. After that it was 'all hands to the pumps' to work out how we could perform without Linda... and big thanks to Kate, from Northern Girls, who was promoted to be an honary member of CJDL for the evening!"
"I should add," said Taylor, "that I think I heard the phrase 'cancel the show' only once, and then very briefly, before it was quickly dismissed."
Dianne explained how she had spoken to the waiting fans moments after getting back to the arena. "In the end, we started a bit over half an hour late."
"So, the show went on, sadly without Linda. Our tech team came up with an amazing start for the show - Linda is the one who normally starts the show. Plus we had to leave out a couple of songs that needed Linda. But just before the end, we got a lovely surprise..."
"Didn't we just? The stage crew had rigged up a trolley with a chair for Linda - who had just got back from the hospital - and pushed her onstage! Suddenly a not-so-good evening got one hundred times better!" explained Dianne.
"Tell you what," said Linda, "it felt so good hearing all our fans cheering for me!"
"So, you're in a wheelchair - crutches not good enough for you then?" asked Carol, smiling.
"Oh, I have crutches, but have you seen how big this hotel and the Arena next door are? I'd like to get to the stage before the end of the evening! And we now have a new member of the team... this is Ziggy, she's here to help me by pushing me around in this wheelchair, and with other stuff."
"Stuff?"
"Yeah, it's kinda hard to just 'get up and grab a coffee' in this chair. Plus she's here to help with more important things, like... like getting to bed and things."
"How does your leg feel now? Are you in any pain?"
"It's as annoying as hell having my leg out straight like this, unable to bend my knee, but I guess my leg needs to be immobilised to let it heal... apparently, I'm in this for six weeks! Arghhh! I need to keep it up like this... or at least not put any weight on it... for a week or two, then I've this sort of boot thing I can use to hobble around on. Ummm... You asked about pain: I guess having it in plaster... although it's not actually plaster, it's more like fibreglass... but I think it helps the pain. But I'm also on a load of drugs - legal painkillers I should add - that seem to be keeping the pain away. Just no booze for a while!"
"Ok, so the tour goes on. Linda, how do you plan on opening the show: normally you're the first one on stage?"
"We have an amazing team of dancers, so tonight, the plan is that Ziggy will wheel me on in this wheelchair, then our dancers will 'pluck' me from it, and lift me up and support me. Then throughout the show, they will help me get around, and help me into my sofa."
"Sofa?"
"Yeah, a sofa... but if they want to know more, they'll have to come along to the show and see for themselves!"
"So what about your costumes? I mean, you can't wear them with your leg like that..."
"Our two wardrobe ladies have been working very hard, cutting off legs, and making them so I can get into them. In fact, I believe they have had to use so much velcro on my costumes that they have officially declared a velcro shortage here in Aberdeen!"
"So, we've talked about what has just happened, but let's spend a few minutes asking how the tour came about in the first place..." Carol had decided to include this specifically to get the four Northern Girls involved.
Finally, Carol paused. "Any more question for me to ask, Paige?"
"Yup, got three... take them in order, but no looking ahead... I want to see you reaction to the last one!" she passed Carol the three pieces of paper. The first two questions were fairly simple and straightforward, but when she got to the third one, she smiled, then smiled a lot more, then started to laugh quite loudly.
"You know, I'm surprised we didn't have this one earlier!" Carol turned to the other seven girls: "So, one last question for you all: 'What IS it with the braces?'"
The girls also laughed, and before answering the question, they gathered around Linda, and all gave the cameras big smiles, showing off their shiny metal braces and multi-coloured ligatures.
After the girls answered the last question, Paige came forward again. "I suspect you've all got some editing to do, but was that good for you all?" She saw many thumbs-ups. "Ok, so whilst the 'big boys' pack up, why doesn't the local press come and chat, then when things are quiet again, you guys from the local TV can have a chat too."
---
A guy from a local newspaper want over to the girls, and introduced himself. "You know, I can't believe how relaxed you guys are about us. Most performers just want to get away!"
"I guess we appreciate you guys, without you and our fans, what would we do?" said Linda.
"So I saw your show last night: initially people were starting to get annoyed about the delay, but when you came out Dianne, and showed those pictures, well, everyone was on your side! How did it feel not having Linda there with you?" He asked a few more relevant questions.
"Did you actually enjoy the show then?" Jenny asked him.
He smiled. "I did, actually, although I had been hoping to see you do 'Gimme Chocolate'."
"Yes, that's fun for us all, so it's sad to have to drop it!" said Taylor.
"Don't worry," said Linda, "it's something I'm hoping we can work on in the next couple of days!"
With the room finally quieter, they all did a short TV interview, that the local news would show that evening in the local news program.
"Well, that all went well." said Ben. "Thanks Carol for doing the interviewing again: it sounded good to me! And thank you ALL for your time: I'm sure it was very worthwhile."
[30/4005]
