The rest of the day flew by as we drove around to three different newspapers for interviews and a couple of photos and two other radio stations.

By the time I could finally drag myself up the stairs to the front door it was almost eleven o’clock in the evening. We’d been driving around all day, but I had enjoyed every minute of it. Just being on the road with two amazing friends and be out to promote us felt really great, and once we got used to it, it was that nerve wracking anymore, just relaxing. Most of the interviewers and journalists were so sweet and kind, it was hard to feel uncomfortable in any of their company.



Christmas. A weird tradition, I think. I always find myself seriously consider each single year, if I really want to go through all this hassle with gifts, just to receive some back that I mostly would already have predicted. It’s an expensive, massively over-indulging affair that is as far from celebrating the birth of Jesus as it could be.

I love that it is – for once – a time for family, for everybody. You never feel left out of something else on Christmas Eve, you’re never missing anything. Cause everybody is doing the exact same thing as you. It’s comforting to know, and also kind of beautiful.

To be cooking and eating together and to be singing Christmas carols is amazing. But I feel like, when you buy gifts for people at this occasion, it’s always so… predictable. You only give those gifts because you have to, you never do it because you want to. And that just kind of takes away the beautiful thing about giving something to someone to specifically make them happy and not just your own conscience.


I called Niall during the night and wished him a merry Christmas, the noise in his end wasn’t nearly as deafening as the one at my place, once again we’d ended up being literally 30 people gathered on this evening. Other people outside our family might think that this way we would lose a bit of the intimacy about the tradition, but it was all I’d ever known. I had no idea how it would be to celebrate Christmas being with less than ten other family members. And eleven people would be a quiet one then.



I woke up at five o’clock the next fucking early morning by my shitty alarm tone. I was about to fall asleep again and if it hadn’t been for Aida calling me to tell me to get the hell out of bed and get ready for her to pick me up an hour later. We were going to be on the Good Morning Denmark show this morning in Copenhagen and apparently we had to leave this fucking early to get there on time, even though the show didn’t start until nine.

I groaned as I practically rolled out of bed and down on to the floor where I crawled all the way to my closet to pull out some clothes. The worst part about this day would be that I would actually have to worry about my looks, since I was going to be on national television this morning.
Great. Really fucking great.

My mood wasn’t being brightened up one bit when I looked at my face in the mirror. The tired dark circles under my eyes from only having slept four hours, the colorless winter skin on my cheeks and the red marks that indicated the dry spots that had been caused by the cold weather here in Denmark, was just a few among the endless row of evidence on how lethargic I was feeling today.

I could only hope that some strong coffee and a shit load of makeup would help on my looks. I was feeling really weird, somehow. On one hand I was just exhausted and wanted to crawl back under the covers immediately, but at the same time I was nervous and excited for the big thing that Aida, Em and I were about to do – and that was to be on national television. It really was a big thing, which also made me feel extremely resigned. How was I ever going to be proud of this face and show it off to the entire population that chose to turn on their television on Christmas morning?


I wore my new pair of black skinny jeans that Em and Aida had given me. I don’t know if it was as an actual Christmas present, since they gave them to me almost a week ago, after the dress fitting at Elie Saab. They were so sick of me not realizing that I’d actually lost weight, so they gave me these in two sizes smaller than I would normally use. And they had fitted me perfectly. I was so happy, but also a bit uncomfortable, since I’d gotten all comfortable in my old loose ones, but these looked a lot better. I added a plain white t-shirt and my blue second hand button down shirt that had flowers in some dusty pastel colors. I’d always loved the contrast between them and the blue. And somehow they all matched the bright red color that I had painted my nails last night, it looked really cool actually.
I kept my ankles bare and put my feet in to a pair of black Nike Free. I gathered my hair in a tall bun – something Aida had commanded me to do in a text message the night before that told me exactly what to wear. And so I put on my big gold wrist watch and grabbed my big leather bag that matched the blue color on my shirt, before going outside where Aida was already waiting. She had told us not to wear any makeup, since they would apparently do that in the studio or something, so I had to drag myself and the unappealing face of mine out in the cold and in to Aida’s car.

“Okay, I have to get some coffee and cigarettes first,” was the first thing that came out of my mouth when I saw both her and Em that she this time had picked up first.

Even though none of them were wearing any makeup, they still looked absolutely stunning.

Em was wearing a black loose turtleneck sweater, a grey skater skirt with a floral pattern, some black stockings and black leather boots. She had also put on her oversized denim jacket that I adored so much and pulled her hair back in a tight straight ponytail. I assumed that it was still straight from last night, she wouldn’t even have had any time to sleep the slightest bit, if she had intentions of straightening that right before we were leaving.

Aida was wearing her oversized button up shirt that was white at the top, but around the waist the color turned black. It was the coolest shirt and she’d added some dark grey skinny jeans and straightened her now rather long bangs. She’d let them grow since we’d come to London and they were now long enough for her to tug them behind her ear. The rest was still completely short, but her marked cheek bones and full lips always made it somehow look really feminine.

“We can do that, we have plenty of time,” she told me with a raspy voice that indicated the overwhelming exhaustion, just like with me and the quiet blonde haired girl sitting at the passenger seat in front of me. “Where are they open by this hour?”

“Uhm… the gas station,” I mumbled reluctantly, knowing that that was the only place that we could go and get coffee at six o’clock in the morning. And it wasn’t exactly because I had the fondest memories of that place, but if nothing else the colleagues there were hilarious – the biggest hillbillies ever.


“Maja, welcome back! Applying to get your job back?” the middle-aged woman with bleached hair behind the counter greeted me with a thick South Danish dialect and a loud voice that rang through my ears at this early fucking hour. Her name was Christine.

“Not exactly,” I smiled as kindly as I could manage before heading straight for the coffee machine, Em and Aida following me closely behind.

“What are you guys doing up this early anyway?” she asked as she was getting ready some of the pastries that had just finished baking in the oven. The pastries that had destroyed my life.

Not anymore.
Never again.


This time I stuck to my cup of black coffee and a packet of Blue Kings before heading back out towards the car. I vaguely noticed how Aida had rolled up the ends on her jeans revealing her bare ankles as well. The only difference between hers and mine were the tattoo that she’d gotten about a year ago. It said “Whatever” on her right one and “Happens” on the left, all together creating the title of the song by Michael Jackson that I knew she’d always loved and felt really close to.

After a couple of heaves of a cigarette and a few sips of our burning hot coffees we found ourselves ready to continue the drive all the way to Copenhagen.


But by the time we arrived at the studio about one and a half hours later I already felt the need to feel the familiar burn from the strong coffee and a cigarette in my throat.
A woman showed us the way through a lot of different rooms and hallways that I’d known were to find at the Central Station in Copenhagen. I remember the studio from the television, where the background had always been an overview over almost the entire station and I’d only had the chance to imagine how it would be like to be in that studio.


And now here we were. The Rookies were now sitting in three different makeup chairs after having done a sound check for the piano, Aida’s black guitar and the three microphones. A very sweet and fast working woman was applying a thick layer of concealer under my eyes, I could only hope that she could some kind of magical tricks to my face and make it look reasonably pretty in the camera.

“Nothing too harsh,” I heard Em command from next to me and I quickly noticed the woman doing her makeup holding a black eyeliner in her hand. She needed to be careful with that, unless she wanted her head ripped off by the immediately innocent looking girl in front of her. But I didn’t doubt one second that the harsh tone in her voice indicated that she meant every word.


The host of the TV show, Good Morning Denmark, was Cecilie, who I’d always found very charismatic and relaxed on that show, it was really weird to be talking to her in person. While our makeup had been done the producer had went over the plan for the show at least ten times, so that we were now aware of every single person’s every move and this time we’d gotten a few instructions on how to answer the questions, or more like who would answer which questions. They did that to make sure that there weren’t being wasted any time on confusions like people blocking each other’s voices or breaks whenever finding who would speak when.


“Did she want to put more makeup on you than that?” I mumbled to Em nodding against the black eyeliner on her lid. We were having a short break before we would begin the interview in fifteen minutes. The three of us were standing outside, Aida and I enjoying a cigarette to control our nerves just a bit.

Em looked beautiful and I knew that you would have to have more makeup on for the camera to catch it, or at least that was what I was told when I very reluctantly agreed to let the makeup artist put on eyeliner and mascara on my lower lashes as well. Since they were so long, just like my upper lashes, I’d always thought it made me look like a panda bear.

“Yeah she wanted me to have as much makeup on as you,” she mumbled back with a low voice. “But my eyes are just too small and I don’t want to appear too harsh and like I’m trying to impress anyone.”

“I really had to put on my bitchiest attitude, before they let us wear our own clothes,” Aida then joined in overhearing our conversation.

“Really?” I asked her with wide eyes.

“Yeah, they wanted to pick our clothes,” she nodded. “But I convinced them that we had it under control, they almost make people look so plain and like they lack personality. Maybe they do, but we don’t.”

“God, I love you,” Em sighed with a smirk. “Are we ready?”

“Let’s do this,” I said throwing the butt in the trash next to me.



“We’ll be on in five,” Cecilie informed us as we sat down on the white couches with Em closest to her, Aida in the middle and then me, like we’d been instructed about five times. Now when I’d started to wake up the nerves also had gotten their chance to kick in. Rather violently even. Thank you so much.

It seemed like only half a second before the host started speaking with her face turned towards the camera that was moving slightly closer to her. Another one then turned straight towards us, just as she greeted us with a smile that we politely returned.

“So girls,” she began. “What an insane change of lifestyle that you’re heading towards. Your lives have now suddenly been filled with things like paparazzi’s and covers of newspapers. How is it to suddenly having to deal with all of this?”

“It’s definitely different,” Em answered, just like she’d been told earlier. “I mean, we’re from this small quiet town and now we’re suddenly living in London and are surrounded by people almost every second. But I don’t think it’s a change that any of us regret at all.”
The wide smile on her lips emphasized her words and I was happy to feel completely happy and satisfied with her answer, cause we hadn’t really discussed any of this before. How we were feeling about this new lifestyle. As Em said, maybe that was because none of us regretted it one bit. Instead we were kind of loving it.

“All this attention was caused mostly brought on by the fact that you are all three dating famous pop stars, perhaps some of the most popular ones right now, which is the boys from One Direction, am I right?” Cecilie then asked.

“Yes,” Aida replied.

“Who is dating who?” I had a feeling that we would have to answer these questions a shit load of times.

“I’m with Liam,” Em said.

“I’m with Harry,” Aida continued.

“And I’m with Niall,” I smiled at the sound of those words. God, I was such a foolish idiot.

“What are they like? Are they being nice to you?” the host teased with a grin on her face. I didn’t even get annoyed with how the interview revolved around the boys, I knew that a big TV show like this would have to take care of their many viewers, who probably weren’t curious about anything else but them.

“Sure they are,” I answered still smiling. “They’re some really nice guys.”

“It must be rather difficult to date someone as famous as them?” she then said and I continued:

“Yeah, it can be. I mean, you kind of have to keep things in mind that you weren’t normally used to keep in mind, so that’s a bit different. But it’s not… difficult. No, I wouldn’t say so. You just don’t think that much about it, to be honest.”

“What about the fans of them? I mean, how are they handling the fact that now all the boys are taken, and the last three very recently?”

“Well, of course there have been many different reactions to it, some like it and some don’t,” Aida said. “The ones that do, make us happy.”

Simple, but perfect answer, Aida, I thought to myself and I almost smirked insidiously widely at the thought of the faces of the many haters, suddenly finding out that this girl didn’t give a shit about them.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Cecilie kindly replied. “And at the same time you are together in a band, right?”

“That’s correct,” Em answered.

“Called The Rookies?”

We nodded.

“And you’re trying to make your way in to the British and international music industry, that was why you moved to London in the first place?”
“Well, it wasn’t the only reason, but yes, we would like to be able to play music for a living,” Em said. “But London is also just a great place to be, just living there and walk around the streets is amazing. A nice change.”

“And so how is everything going with your band?”

“It’s going really well, I think,” I nodded. “We’ve now quit our full time jobs that we’ve had the first months of living there, but now we would like to focus our time directly on the music, so that it will be easier to make it happen.”

“Can you make enough money to pay the rent and so on?”

“We certainly hope so,” Aida chuckled along with the rest of us. “We will just have to advertise ourselves to the point of obnoxious, hopefully it’ll all work out then.”

“But it sounds to me like you’re already getting along pretty well, playing gig after gig around the big city?”

“Yeah, we do get a lot of jobs, but you know… The rent is insanely expensive, so we need every single penny that we can get,” Aida answered.

“Not to be rude, but I know that a lot of people must think that they would like to know, if the boys can’t help you out then?”

“No,” Em immediately answered with a small frown on her forehead that indicated how foreign the thought seemed to her and us. “No, that’s not the case.”

“But I would still like to say to anybody watching this at home,” Aida interrupted – which wasn’t in the producer’s plan – as she turned towards the camera, “that if you ever need any kind of music for any kind of event, you should definitely contact The Rookies on our email.”

“You can find it on our Twitter account or Facebook page,” Em instantly joined in.

“They need it,” Cecilie kindly added to the joke laughing along with us. “And with those words we’re now going to take a break, Helen will give you today’s and the week’s forecast, before we will return and these girls will play you a bit of their music. See you again soon,” she nodded to the camera and I was impressed with the timing she had, it all seemed very smooth and casual.

After a few sips of water and one last quick sound check at the small area in the studio, where the instruments and microphones were lined up, the cameras turned to us again. I was sitting at the piano on the right side, Em in the middle and Aida on the left.

A short introduction and we were immediately thrown in to playing on national television.

Notes