"Hello?" I said, barely awake.
"Morning!" said a voice that was WAY too cheerful for that early.
"Morning? Huh? It's still nighttime! And why the hell are you calling me at this time Karen?"
She laughed.
"Time to get up!"
I think she was enjoying this.
"WHAT???? WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S TIME TO GET UP? IT'S 4:30 AM!!!!!!!"
As you may have figured out already, I am NOT a morning person.
Karen just laughed again. Ok, she was DEFINITELY enjoying this.
"Kristy, get your lazy ass out of bed and dressed. We have a half-hour before we meet in the lobby. See ya then. And I mean it Kristy, you BETTER get up or Al's gonna kick your ass."
"Gee, thanks," I muttered.
"I mean it! Bye."
"Bye."
I hung up the phone and dragged myself out of bed. I somehow managed to find my way into the bathroom. I took a hot shower. The warm water had helped and I was a little more aware then. But I still felt REALLY tired. I changed into dark denim flares and a navy three-quarter sleeve shirt and put on my favorite dark blue and silver beaded choker (I like dark blue a lot...can you tell?). Then I began the somewhat difficult task of taming my hair. See, my hair is naturally curly....I mean REALLY curly. I love it most of the time, but there are times where it can be extremely annoying (*I'm thinking marching band...Korin and Karen, you guys understand hehe ---Kristy:)*)My hair comes down to about my chin...I love it that way but it makes it harder to hide the bad hair days. So after I finally tamed my hair (I put on this cute little hat just in case), I quickly applied my makeup and headed down to the lobby. When I got there, Kori, Lissa, Alta, Karen, Brian, AJ, Kevin, Howie, Nick, Donna, and Albert (our manager for those of you who missed that in the first chapter) were standing (and sitting) around. Realizing that I was the last person there, I hurried over to them.
"Hey guys," I said.
"Oh my god, Kristy actually got out of bed this early without us having to bang down her door and drag her out of bed ourselves! I think I'm gonna faint!" Korin said teasingly.
I rolled my eyes and ignored her comment.
"Look guys, there better be a REALLY good reason why I'm up this morning," I said.
"It's called rehearsal," AJ said.
"At 5 in the morning?" I said in disbelief.
"Welcome to life on tour," Brian said smiling at me.
"Oh, great," was my reply.
Albert and Donna started going over today's schedules with us.
"Ok boys, here it is. 5 AM to 7 AM - rehearsal. After that, you'll have 2 photo shoots and one interview. You'll be bck to the arena by 5 for soundcheck. After the show, there's the usual autograph signings and backstage stuff, and then you can do whatever you want. But you might wanna keep in mind that you have to get up at 4:00 AM tomorrow morning in order to be at the next destination in time, so you might wanna hti the sack. Got it?" Donna said the guys.
They all just nodded. I could not believe how they were used to a schedule like that!
"Ok girls, your turn," Albert said to us,"here's your day. You got rehearsal till 7, like the guys. For the rest of the day, up until 5, you have promotional stuff. That includes a couple small photo shoots and a couple of radio show appearances. Same thing as the guys for after the concert. It's gonna be a long day, as almost everyday will be. Think you can handle it?"
We all nodded. We were still kind of in shock about this singing thing.
"I have a question," I spoke up, "why do we have to rehearse at 5 AM?"
"Well, they spend the rest of the day setting up the stage. Our part has a LOT of special effects, so it takes a lot of time. So the only times we can rehearse is the morning and soundcheck, but that's not as much a rehearsal as it is, well, a soundcheck," Brian explained with a smile.
"Oh, I see," I replied, returning the smile.
Everyone else exchanged looks. I just sighed.
"Ok, so we're going to the arena now, everyone," Donna said.
We all followed her out into a big old stretch limo. There weren't any fans around at that time in the morning, so we didn't have to worry about the guys getting mobbed. We all got into the limo, me sitting in between Brian and Korin.
"Wow, this is SO cool," Lissa said, referring to the limo.
"I know, I haven't been in a limo since prom night!" Kori said.
"Me either!" I agreed.
The guys just grinned. They had been through this whole 'new to the business' thing 5 years ago, and were enjoying watching us going through it. It wasn't a very long ride to the arena, and before I knew it, we were there. We had to rehearse onstage first, so we started with our first song, Tell Me That You Love Me.
I've been watchin' you baby
For a long long time
Every little thing you do
Almost makes me faint
Now we're finally together
And I'm happy as could be
I wanna be with you forever
Just tell me that you love me
Tell me I'm always on your mind boy
Tell me I'm what you're dreaming of
Tell me we're meant to be together
Tell me you want me for life
Tell me I'm the girl for you
Tell me that you'll be mine forever
Tell me that you are happy with me
Just tell me that you love me
Yeah, yeah
Just tell me that you love me
I would do anything at all
Just tell me what it is
I'll give you all the love you need
All you have to do is ask
When you need someone to be there
I'll be here for you 24/7
I've got everything you need
So just let me know what you want
Tell me I'm always on your mind boy
Tell me I'm what you're dreaming of
Tell me we're meant to be together
Tell me you want me for life
Tell me I'm the girl for you
Tell me that you'll be mine forever
Tell me that you are happy with me
Just tell me that you love me
I'm everything you need boy
Just let me prove it to you
I'll love you better than she ever would
And you know that it's true
I love you baby
More than anything in the world
I'll be there for you
Every second of every day
Just say those three words
Tell me I'm always on your mind boy
Tell me I'm what you're dreaming of
Tell me we're meant to be together
Tell me you want me for life
Tell me I'm the girl for you
Tell me that you'll be mine forever
Tell me that you are happy with me
Just tell me that you love me
Tell me I'm always on your mind boy
Tell me I'm what you're dreaming of
Tell me we're meant to be together
Tell me you want me for life
Tell me I'm the girl for you
Tell me that you'll be mine forever
Tell me that you are happy with me
Just tell me that you love me
Just tell me that you love me
We finished singing and dancing and the guys applauded loudly. We blushed slightly.
"That was a great song! Who wrote it?" Brian asked. The girls pointed to me and I could feel my face turning red.
"You wrote that?" he asked me in disbelief. I nodded.
"It's great!" he said.
I blushed even harder. Damnit! I was making a total fool out of myself in front of Brian! Man, I'll sing and dance in front of anyone, but it when it comes to the stuff I've written I get really self-conscious. But now Brian was probably thinking I didn't know how to handle a compliment! Ugh!
"Thanks," I managed to say, still blushing. Aagh!
"Your welcome," he replied with THAT smile. Dear Lord, I think I'm gonna faint...I snapped out of it and came back to reality.
"All of our songs are either written by one of us or co-written by all five of us," Korin spoke up, diverting the attention away from me.
For once, I was grateful.
"Wow, that's impressive!" Howie said.
We all just smiled.
"Girls, come on, you have four more songs to rehearse and the guys still have to use the stage. Get a move on!" Al yelled.
We all sighed and got back to our work. We sang "You Still Can't See" (a slow song), "Everytime I See You" (a dance song), "Please Don't Go" (a slow song), and ended with "Just An Illusion" (a dance song and our first single). The guys had seen us rehearse the day before, but they were watching us much more closely this time and were even more impressed. Of course, they kept making funny faces at us during our last song, which caused us to crack up. And us being us, we would start laughing so hard that we couldn't sing. We actually had to do it three times in a row, just because of the guys. Finally Donna yelled at them, so they just sat down with 'little-boys-who-just-got-in-trouble' looks on their faces. We actually managed to get through our last song, and then it was the guys turn. We got really crazy and were dancing in the aisles while they were rehearsing. After they were done, we all went our separate ways. The girls all exchanged hugs with the guys.
"See ya tonight," I said to Brian as we hugged.
"I'll look forward to it," he replied.
'Did he really just say that?' I asked myself. This was becoming too good to be true. We realized we were still hugging and everyone was looking at us so we pulled apart. After saying goodbye, we headed to the photo shoots.
We had a lot of fun at the shoots. The guys had said they would become a real drag after awhile, but at the moment I didn't see anything wrong with dressing up in cool clothes and posing for the camera. We did some really crazy poses, along with some serious ones. A few hours later, we were done with the shoots. Time for the radio interview.
We were going to be going to a lot of radio stations throughout the tour as a promotional thing. This being our first one, we were nervous. But it went really well, and after awhile we just relaxed and acted like ourselves. We did a total of two of those, and then it was time for soundcheck, which also went well. Then it was just a matter of waiting.