"I don’t think we have anything for you. You’re obviously in the wrong place. Please leave."
"Aw, man, they’re so horrible to her!" Hannah wailed.
"I know, they’re just a bunch of meanies!" Jessica added.
"And then that sad, sad music comes on and I wanna blub!" Kara reached for a tissue, and wiped her eyes.
"Kara, c’mon, it’s not that sad. It has a happy ending!" Laura gave her friend a big hug.
"Yeah, cheer up honey, we all know what happens!" Charlie joined the hug, and soon it became a big group hug!
The Exclamat!on girls were watching their all-time favourite movie…Pretty Woman. They were all best friends, and part of a new all-girl band.
"Edward…uh…Edward…uh…he knows me!"
"Dennis? Did you just come off the night shift?"
"Kara, don’t you remember? The nice manager man is gonna get her a dress!" Laura soothed their emotional friend.
"He doesn’t get her the dress, his friend at the shop does." Jessica told Laura, sighing as if to say ‘I can’t believe you forgot that part’.
"What’s her name again?" Hannah asked.
"Oh…Beverly? No…Belinda?" Jessica tried to remember, clicking her fingers as if that somehow would magically make the name appear.
"Dammit, Hannah, you’ve done it again!" Charlie exclaimed.
"What?!" Hannah had a knack of asking questions like, ‘what’s her name?’ and ‘what film was he in?’, stuff that people can never remember. It would keep them awake all night, just trying to remember the answer. [Author’s note: For those of you wondering, the lady at the shop who helps Vivian get a dress is called Bridgett.]
"This is gonna bug me all night!" Kara said, tossing the tissue into the trash.
"Well excuse me for breathing!" Hannah protested grumpily. As they continued to try and figure out the name of the ‘nice dress lady’, the phone rang. "I’ll get it!" Hannah exclaimed.
"No you won’t, it’s my phone!" Charlie retorted, reaching for the phone.
"It’s our phone, actually." Hannah reminded Charlie.
"Well it’s in my room, so…"
"Hey, Mom said we were to share it!"
"Can someone just answer it?!" Jessica asked desperately as the phone continued to ring.
"I’m getting it." Laura sighed and rolled her eyes at the quarrelling sisters. "Hello?"
"Is that Charlotte Bierowic?" An unfamiliar American voice asked. (Hannah and Charlie’s family name, Bierowic, is Polish.)
"No, but I can get her. Who’s calling please?"
"I’m from Jive Records, I wanted to speak to a member of Exclamat!on. This was the contact number I was given."
"Oh, I’m a member of Exclamat!on, I’m Laura Roberts."
"Okay, good. As I said, I’m from Jive Records. I’m the spokesperson for the Backstreet Boys."
"The Backstreet Boys?!" Laura cried. Charlie and Hannah (who’d been arguing in the background) promptly shut up and listened to Laura’s end of the conversation.
"Yes, that’s right. You’ve heard of them haven’t you?"
"Yes, of course!"
"Good. Well, they’ve hand-picked you from the list of Jive’s up and coming bands to open for them on their next tour."
"Omigod, are you serious?!"
"What?!" the others asked in unison.
"Shh!" Laura put her finger over her lips, glaring at them. "Yes, I’m perfectly serious. Now, I have given your manager all the details, and he’ll be contacting you sometime tomorrow. But he said that you’d like to be told about the tour by me."
"Yeah, I mean, it kinda makes it a bit more of a shock!"
"I guess so! Okay, that’s pretty much it, but pass on the news to the other members of Exclamat!on, okay?"
"Sure, and thank you!"
"Don’t thank me, thank the Backstreet Boys."
"Okay, thank them from all of us!"
"No problem! Take care now."
"Sure." And the guy hung up.
"Laura?! Who the hell was that, what was that about the Backstreet Boys?!" Jessica was fidgeting, desperate for information.
"You’ll never believe it!" Laura was trying to remain calm, but wasn’t doing a very good job…she was grinning her face off and kinda squeaking!
"Tell us!" Kara shouted impatiently.
"WE’RE GONNA BE TOURING WITH THE BACKSTREET BOYS!!!" Laura was unable to contain her excitement for a moment longer. She jumped up and punched her fist into the air. "THE BACKSTREET BOYS! AAAHHHH!!!"
"Laura, are you fucking serious?!" Charlie asked, her eyes wide and unbelieving.
"I SWEAR IT, YES!!!!"
"AAAAHHHH!!!" They all stood up and jumped up and down in a big group hug. They were all laughing and screaming and whooping…but Jessica was crying.
"Jessica? Jessica sweetie, whatever’s the matter?" Kara was by far the sweetest member of Exclamat!on…and Jessica was kinda into the Backstreet Boys.
"It’s the Backstreet Boys!" she gushed, crying.
"Aw, honey, it’ll be awesome!" Kara soothed.
"I know!" Jessica cried harder and harder. The others looked sympathetic.
"Hey, mate, cheer up!" Hannah laughed.
"I am cheered up!" Jessica was the only one of them who really listened to Backstreet Boys…I mean…she wasn’t exactly a fan, but she knew a lot about them and their music…so touring with them would kinda mean a lot to her. The others gave Jessica an extra-special hug, and they all tried to calm down and put things into perspective.
"So, what else did this guy say?" Charlie asked, fanning her face with her hand. They were all really flushed and hot from screaming and jumping…and from the adrenaline rush.
"He said that Dave’s gonna talk to us tomorrow sometime." Dave is their manager. "That was pretty much it. Oh, there was one other thing…the Backstreet Boys hand-picked us!" Jessica, who had finally managed to stop crying, sobbed again.
"I’m gonna meet the Backstreet Boys!" she screamed. The others all laughed and handed her a box of tissues.
"We all are." Charlie sighed happily. After they’d all calmed down and Jessica had totally stopped crying, they chatted about the Backstreet Boys.
The next day, Dave filled them in with all the details.
"Okay, guys, take a seat and I’ll explain the whole situation." Exclamat!on sat down on the various couches in Dave’s office which was in the Jive building in London. "Okay, you were picked by Backstreet Boys as their opening act after they heard your demo-tape. They have no idea what you look like, so you should take it as a great compliment that they only chose you for what you sound like. Although, we have warned them that they’ll be dealing with five very gorgeous girls." Dave didn’t say this in a sleazy way, he was just being honest. And, to tell the truth, Exclamat!on did have a lot besides talent going for them.
They had Laura, oldest member at twenty-three, who was from the US. Laura came from Florida, she was born in Miami. But she wasn’t your typical all-American Floridian girl. Laura was tall, with long, black hair, that was totally straight. She had an Oriental look, which wasn’t surprising since her mom was Japanese. Her dad was from New York, which explained her English/American sounding last name. Laura had big, brown eyes, and a curvaceous figure. She had always been admired by many guys when she was at school, and now she’d left college, she was hunting for a guy!
Kara, the next oldest at twenty-one, was American also. She was from Pennsylvania. Kara wasn’t tall, but kinda short, with shoulder-length brown hair, that was slightly wavy. But she had stunning blue eyes that accentuated her year-long tan. Even in Pennsylvania, when she got a summer tan, it hardly faded at all through winter. So when it came to summer again, she’d just get that bit more brown to make herself totally tanned.
Charlie was twenty, but she wasn’t from the US. Charlie and Hannah were English. Well, half-English. They were both born in London, but lived in Florida for about eight years because their mom is American. Then they came back to England. They both still had their English accents, but they’d met the other girls back in Florida. Charlie had black hair, but unlike Laura’s, it was very short and cropped. Charlie was kinda average height, and very slim. She was into sports, just like Hannah.
Jessica was Hannah’s best friend, and she was totally English. She’d lived in London her whole life, so she didn’t have that all-American look either! Jessica was short, like Kara, but her hair was quite long. It was light-brown, almost blonde, and reached halfway down her back. Jessica was slim also, but she’d always been a very small build.
And finally, Hannah, the half-English, youngest, member of Exclamat!on. Hannah was four and a half years younger than Charlie. Charlie would be twenty-one that summer, but Hannah wouldn’t be seventeen until Autumn. Hannah’s birthday was twelve days behind Jessica’s, but Jessica was to turn nineteen, not seventeen. Hannah was average height, with long blonde hair. She was the only member of the band who was properly blonde. But hair was the only thing that made her look different from Charlie. They had the same look, Hannah was just a miniature version of Charlie. Hannah and Charlie were both really into sports, and had slim athletic figures. But Hannah wasn’t the sort of girl guys loved to date - she was feisty, kinda spunky. Guys saw her as a friend, not as a possible girlfriend. Hannah had never dated a guy in her life, unlike the others who’d dated ever since they’d started Junior High. I mean, you don’t date properly at Elementary school!
Anyway, they’re the Exclamat!on girls. Dave continued to tell them what was gonna be happening with the tour.
"You’ll be touring the US from May through to January. There’ll be a nine-week break somewhere in the Autumn, as the Backstreet Boys have to work on their new album. And, so do you."
"But what about Hannah? It’s okay for us to tour, but Hannah’s too young." Laura pointed out.
"I was gonna come to that. You see, Hannah needs a parent or a guardian who’s been assigned by her parents to accompany her at all times."
"No problem," Charlie immediately said. "Our parents are too busy, but they’ll assign me."
"Okay, that’s that solved then." Dave looked relieved - he’d obviously been wondering about what they were gonna do with Hannah being only sixteen. "You’ll be put with a choreographer in a few weeks, so that you can put dances to your tracks. And between yourselves, pick four songs to perform, and a fifth one as a stand-by."
So, all the arrangements were made, and the dates for choreography were set.
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Chapter Two