Cheradine - Complicated Feelings

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The five girls walked into one of the large changing rooms, all the girls apart from Nadine made their way over to the sofa and slumped themselves onto it and began to *Female Dog* about Jessica’s previous articles. The young blonde wasn’t in the mood to go over all the bad articles that had been written about her and decided to look at the outfits, she needed something to cheer her up; she began to go through Cheryl’s rail of clothes as it was the first she came across.

“... can’t believe they suggested Nadine was trying annoy me when she dyed her dark brown, it’s like they think we are 11 years old,” Cheryl was mid rant and looked round at Nadine to see if she had anything to add as she had been very quiet, “Nads?” she noted that the Irish girl was looking at the wrong clothes rail, “Babes thats my rail.” The brunette could tell that Nadine was in a bad mood and wished she could go up to her and kiss her worries away.

Nadine looked up at the sound of Cheryl addressing her, “I know, just wanted to see what clothes we all have to wear for this group shot.” She turned back to the rail of clothes, and sighed she just wanted to curl up on the sofa with Cheryl, unfortunately that wasn’t an option.

Kimberley looked at Cheryl and could see the concern covering her best friend’s face; turning to look at Nadine she also noted the troubled expression, she got up and walked over to Nadine, “Babe, it will be alright. The main thing is we all know we love each other and that there’s no rift or feud or whatever. She can write whatever she wants but we can’t let it ruin our day.” The Bradford girl said trying to comfort Nadine.

Nadine exhaled loudly and turned round to look at Kimberley, “It’s alright for you guys, you don’t get portrayed as the evil *Female Dog* that doesn’t give a damn about the rest of the band.” She said with anger and annoyance laced in her words.

Sarah could see Nadine was getting upset at the situation, “Hey Nads we don’t like reading that about you either. Come here.” She said whilst walking over to the Irish girl to give her a hug, Kimberley also wrapped her arms around Nadine.

Nicola and Cheryl looked at each other, “Hey don’t leave us out.” The redhead said with a smile, and jumped up off the sofa to join the group hug as did Cheryl.

As the girls parted from the group hug Cheryl held onto the younger blonde and pulled her into a rib crushing squeeze, “I love you” she whispered into the girl’s ear and quickly placed a sweet kiss on her cheek. Cheryl pulled away from the hug slowly and was glad to see Nadine smiling back at her, “right now let’s try to work out what we will be wearing. Where is Lucy?” Cheryl asked whilst intertwining her hand with Nadine’s and looked around the changing room.

Kimberley shrugged, “not sure. She said she had something to check with Hilary when we came in.” She said whilst caringly ruffled Nadine’s hair, “feeling better?”

Nadine smiled back at Kimberley, “aye sorry for being rather moody then.” She leant her head onto the Bradford girl’s shoulder.

At that moment Lucy, the girl’s stylist, walked in looking rather harassed with an unhappy Jessica. “Girls I told her it’s not appropriate whilst you get changed, but she wanted to know if her photographer could take some pictures of you in the changing room.” She asked whilst rolling eyes, clearly unimpressed by the request.

The girls looked at each other; Nadine raised her eyebrow knowingly and dropped Cheryl’s hand, hoping she did it slyly. Kimberley decided to make the group’s decision, “it should be ok whilst Lucy is showing us what we are wearing, but not whilst we actually change.”

Jessica smiled, “of course.” From experience Kimberley was the voice of reason in the group, although Jessica was disappointed to see Nadine was resting on Kimberley and looked very happy talking to Cheryl; in fact all the girls looked much happier much to her confusion.

Later on, once the girls had finally got into their outfits and had their makeup redone for the group shot; they were on the set with all the lights and eyes on them. The photographer was shouting out, in the friendliest way possible, the poses he wanted from the girls and rearranging their order. He started off with the order Nicola, Kimberley, Nadine, Sarah and Cheryl, standing in a line. “Ok let’s have Cheryl next to Nadine, please.” The photographer, Mark, always tried to be nice to his clients, he didn’t want them thinking he was bossing them around.

Cheryl took her arm from around Sarah’s waist and swapped positions with the peroxide blonde. “Hey you.” she whispered out of the side of her mouth to Nadine, whilst wrapping her arm around the girls waist so their hips were touching, which sent a tingling sensation through her body; one she would never get tired of.

Nadine smiled at the cuteness of the older Geordie girl, and couldn’t help but preferring the feeling of the brunette’s body to the peroxide blonde’s. “Oh watch out Jessica is going to have a heart attack.” Nadine jokingly stated with laughter in her voice, which didn’t help the other girls keep a straight a face as they fell about laughing.

Cheryl let out a hearty laugh whilst throwing her head back and playfully slapping Nadine’s arm, “sshh...you don’t want her having an actual reason to write something bad about you.” She said jokingly.

“No worries Chez, no one heard.” Nicola observed with a smile as she finished laughing and began to compose herself; as everyone else in the room were looking at the girls weirdly, having no clue to what they found so funny.
 
Mark, the photographer, loved the cheerful vibe from the girls and snapped away as they were laughing; quickly taking a break from picturing the girls as they composed themselves to look through the pictures. He found the chemistry between the girls delightful, and all of their beauty was simply breath taking; he wondered silently to himself why people felt the need to write about fake feuds when it was evident it was far from that in the group.

Kimberley looked over to the photographer once she had stopped laughing to see him looking at his camera, she felt slightly bad that they had interrupted his flow; “Sorry about that, we’re ready again.” She swiftly apologised on behalf of the other girls.

Mark looked up at Kimberley after hearing her apology, which he quickly waved away; “nonsense, I want you to have fun.” He replied smiling to the girls as he didn’t want them to feel bad. The girls all smiled back at him, “Right so maybe let’s try a bit of stronger look. Cheryl rest your arm on Nadine’s shoulder, and try standing side on. Kimberly have you back to Nadine so you’re also side on. Nicola place your hand on Kimberley’s shoulder but face me. Sarah facing Cheryl, yep like that and turn your head towards me. Ok. Brilliant... Lovely...” He fired more instructions at the girls whilst moving around them, clicking away on the camera.

Once Mark finished with the first group shots, he attached his camera to his laptop to quickly flick through them to make sure he was happy with the images as the girls talked among themselves. He smiled once the pictures uploaded, all the girls looked stunning in every picture and he felt the day had been going brilliant so far; he looked up the girls; “Do you quickly want to see what we’ve got so far?” he asked already knowing the answer.

The girls smiled and rushed over to Mark and huddled round his laptop; there were a series of ooh’s and ahh’s; compliments flying between the girls and a general feeling of satisfaction over the pictures. Kimberley noted that there was definitely an obvious chemistry between Nadine and Cheryl; she wondered if people would just assume it was friendship, she was pretty sure they would. She was rather pleased their chemistry came across on the camera, the fans would hopefully realise that there was no bad blood between the girls at all.

Hilary saw Jessica lingering and her photographer taking pictures of the girls huddled around the laptop; she walked over to the journalist; “Let me just get girls into their changing room and then you can come do that interview. Just wait here.”

Once Hilary had got the girls into the changing room, she let them get out of their outfits and put their dressing gowns on, then she sat them down; Kimberley, Cheryl and Nadine on the sofa with Nicola and Sarah sitting on either arm rest. Cheryl casually rested her hand on Nadine’s thigh and looked at her reassuringly, “you alright?” she asked referring to the interview they were about to have, she wanted Nadine to feel as relaxed as possible.

Nadine placed her hand on top of Cheryl’s and smiled back at the brunette, touched that the girl was trying to make her feel comfortable as it was obvious to the girls that Nadine didn’t like Jessica one bit. “I’ll be fine; you guys do most of the talking though.”

As Nadine finished her sentence Jessica walked into the dressing room with Hilary and her photographer, James. She took at seat opposite the girls and clicked on her tape recorder; “How are you girls?” she asked the group, noting that the girls had Nadine in the middle and next to Cheryl. She saw the two girls were holding hands, she mentally rolled her eyes, of course the girls would make it very hard for her to write anything of a feud between them.

All the girls answered pretty much in unison; “Good thank you. You?” with Nadine’s accent adding ‘s’ on the of you.

Jessica nodded, “Good good. So Cheryl, how has it been coming back from your solo work to working as part of a group again?”

Cheryl smiled, but mentally stuck her finger up at Jessica; there was no doubt in her mind that Jessica would twist her words to make it seem she preferred working solo whatever her answer would be. “It’s been great. Working with the girls was one of the things I missed when I was working solo.”

Jessica nodded, of course Cheryl would answer professionally, nothing she hadn’t expected; “Nadine, what about you? Must be hard now having to work away from home again?”

Nadine resisted the urge to roll her eyes, although she wasn’t too sure that the other girls had; “I like travelling and being on the move so it’s never been a problem. And I really missed working with the girls so it’s good to be back as a group.” She looked to Cheryl who gave her a look to say this journo is an absolute *banker*, the Irish girl just smiled back in agreement.

Jessica again nodded in response, “So, just out of interest and I’m sure some fans are wondering, why the change of hair colour whilst you did your solo stint?”

Nadine couldn’t help but let out a laugh, she also heard Nicola sniggering and Kimberley and Sarah looked at her with amused smiles. Cheryl turned to Nadine in a jokingly accusing fashion, “Yer Nadine why the change in hair colour?”  The Irish girl found the question completely pointless, and from the reaction of her band mates so did they. “Um I’ve always been one to change my hair colour, so yer just did.” She answered rather bemused once she finished laughing.

Jessica smiled; she could definitely twist Cheryl’s reaction to that question; “So back to blonde for Girls Aloud then?”

Nadine just laughed and shrugged, “Oh of course I have to be blonde for the band.” She answered sarcastically; in her mind she couldn’t understand how Jessica had become a journalist, asking such stupid questions.

Kimberley could just tell even after the first few questions, that Jessica was just trying to get answers that she could twist; this was definitely not going to be a fair representation of them as a band. She frown at the thought of Hilary setting this up, in her eyes the manager should have definitely been more specific about the piece and who was doing it.

Jessica decided to move the question on, “How about everyone’s love life? Still going strong even though you are back to busy work schedules?”

Sarah decided to answer the question for everyone, “I’m pretty sure it’s good for all of us.” The finality of her response ending the question. She couldn’t help but flick her eyes towards Nadine and Cheryl who had turned to look at each other with loving smiles adorned on their face; the peroxide blonde hope Jessica was too convinced of a rival between the two to notice.

Jessica nodded again, completely missing the look between Cheryl and Nadine, but getting the hint she would get no more from them about their love lives. “So then as this is a behind the scenes piece, who takes the longest getting ready?”

Kimberley shrugged, “Um I’m pretty sure we’re all the same really, Sarah is probably quicker due to her shorter hair.” She answered turning to Sarah, to see her nod of approval.

“Who gets the best pick of the clothes? I see you have a number of rails.”

Cheryl mentally sighed, boring question number two, “We all have a great choice of clothes, ‘cos we all have are individual styles that go together as the look of the band.” She answered, she was pretty sure she’d used that line before in a different interview a few years ago; she forgot how repetitive interviews could be.

The interview continued in the same vain; questions all the girls were certain they had been asked before and answers hadn’t really changed; they felt bad for anyone who was going to read the article. After the interview was concluded, Jessica was sent on her way by Hilary and the girls got back to doing more solo and group shots that were going to be used for the album and their first single covers. Throughout the day the chemistry between Cheryl and Nadine was electric and it pretty much came across in every shot of the two of them together, and the few that they weren't standing together there were a few shots of them leaning forward to look at each other. The whole vibe from the girls was lovely, all of them sharing jokes together during the day and they all had a certain chemistry with each other.

TBC