Up and Down (11 page)

“Hello, Martine. I’m David Stewart. I used to handle communications for the Minister of Science and Technology. You
and I have met at
CSA
a few times,” I explained, taking her off the hook.

“Of course, David. I knew I recognized you. How are you – and what are you doing here?” Martine replied.

“Family matters brought me back to Toronto so I traded in life on Parliament Hill for life in a multinational
PR
agency. This is my colleague, Amanda Burke. She’s running the
NASA
account here in Toronto.”

Amanda beamed as she shook Martine’s hand.

“It’s an honour to meet you, Martine,” said Amanda. “And you rocked that ambush back there. This could be a short media training session if you’re already that good.”

“Well, I’ve done a fair bit of media over the years but I’m afraid my boss, Armand, may need some coaching, that is if we can find him. I have no idea where he bolted to. But from the look in his eyes, he might be halfway back to Ottawa by now,” she said with a chuckle.

“Fear not, we’ll send out a search party,” I responded. “Why don’t we head into the boardroom?”

I wasn’t kidding about the search party. Armand Gelinas wasn’t answering his cell phone. So after studying his photo on the Internet, a team of about half a dozen or so Turner-King staffers fanned out from our office in search of the spooked head of the
CSA
. It took about an hour and a half but they did in fact find him. He was cooling off in a Starbucks down the street trying to figure out his next move. He was not very happy when
he learned that the ambush interview had been staged by our media trainer. He had thought it was an actual reporter lurking in our lobby.

Armand calmed down in the end and only raised the elevator confrontation thirteen more times over the course of the afternoon. I’d had many more dealings with Armand over the years than I had with Martine. Even after what had transpired in the lobby, he may have appreciated seeing a familiar face at the boardroom table. By 6:00 p.m., Martine was still very skilled in the way she handled the simulated interviews we threw her way. Armand? Not so much. But he did improve. His first few simulations were not unlike the shower scene in
Psycho
. But by the end of the day, he could quite ably complete an entire interview and deliver at least a couple of key messages without fainting. I have no idea how he came to be head of the Canadian Space Agency, unless it was someone’s idea of putting him out to pasture. We agreed that Martine would try to take the lead when it was time to field questions from the floor at the newser. Armand Gelinas seemed relieved.

We used the Great Hall of the Ontario Science Centre for the
NASA/CSA
news conference. With Hoberman spheres hanging from the ceiling, slowly expanding and collapsing like living planets, it seemed a fitting venue for our announcement. Amanda was beside herself with anxiety. I’d organized a dozen or so news
conferences for my minister in the previous few years, and they’d all gone without a hitch. Then again, whenever a minister of the Crown was holding a newser, reporters always showed up. Apparently, not all news conferences attracted journalists, even though that was the sole purpose of holding them.

“What if no reporters show?” Amanda said to no one in particular. “I’d never live that down. And please don’t let me trip on the riser steps and eat the floor.”

“Amanda, calm yourself. You’ll do just fine. And trust me, reporters will show. It’s a joint
NASA/CSA
announcement. There’s never been one on Canadian soil before, so by definition, this is news and they will come,” I replied.

The set-up looked great to me. A skirted table on risers sat at the front, with a deep blue backdrop featuring both
NASA
and
CSA
logos, along with the words “Citizen Astronaut.” There was theatre-style seating for about twenty reporters, and then another set of risers at the back for cameras. Eli, our mailroom camera guy, was already set up to record the announcement so we could post it on YouTube and our Citizen Astronaut website.

Amanda was back on her cellphone again to the office to check on the status of media calls to confirm attendance.

“I don’t care that they’re not picking up, call again! We have got to have this place filled with reporters, and that means you have to keep calling!” Amanda snapped closed her cell with a look that said keep all sharp objects out of her reach.

“David!”

I turned and saw a beaming Kelly Bradstreet striding my way. Amanda saw her too and moved to intercept.

“Welcome to Toronto, Kelly,” said Amanda, as her hand shot forward for the shake.

“Hello, Amanda. Hi, David. This place is perfect. Very appropriate. Nice choice,” Kelly said. “It’s a bit of a distance from downtown. Do you think we’ll have any trouble getting journos here?”

“While it’s not downtown, the Science Centre is very easy and fast to get to,” Amanda explained. “We’ll get them here. It’s a
NASA/CSA
announcement. There’s never been one on Canadian soil before. That’s news around here.”

She didn’t even look at me when she said it.

We did a last-minute run-through with Kelly. I explained the proper pronunciation of Armand Gelinas (
Armon Gelina
) and Martine Juneau (
Marteen Juno
) and made sure she spent a few minutes with them in the green room before zero hour. Amanda was now in the zone. With plenty of media showing up, she had calmed down from completely freaked out to excessively agitated.

It all went well, despite the power failure. We were a victim of our own success. We had so many cameras plugging into the central audio feedbox that we blew the breaker about five minutes before show time. In the dimness, I could see that Amanda was close to blowing her own breaker. But the Science Centre
AV
guy, bless him, had us up and running again in about forty-five seconds, with a mad dash to the electrical panel down the hall. No problem.

At 10:30, our scheduled start, I counted nineteen reporters, eight bloggers, and six vidcams set up on the risers at the rear. For a Toronto news conference, this was as close to full attendance as you could get. If the announcement went well, the news would travel clear across the country in the coming hours. If Armand Gelinas threw up on his microphone and it all turned ugly, the news would travel clear across the country in the coming hours. The mixed blessing of a well-attended newser.

At the appointed time, Amanda took the steps very carefully, one at a time, as if she were about 104 years old and needed a double hip replacement. Some minutes later, she made it to the fourth and final step and approached the microphone. She was alone on stage. Deep breath.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I’m Amanda Burke from Turner King and I’m pleased to welcome you to this very special announcement. My role is simply to introduce our guests and get off the stage.” She smiled a little self-consciously as she said it, but it went over well.

“Here’s how it’s going to unfold this morning. You all have the media kits. There’ll be three spokespersons available during and following the news conference. We’ll also have raw video b-roll of the
NASA
news conference happening right now in Washington to round out what will be a continental story. So let’s get started.
I’d like to welcome Ms. Kelly Bradstreet, chief information officer and head of
NASA
’
S
Office of Communications, Mr. Armand Gelinas,
CEO
of the Canadian Space Agency, and of course, Dr. Martine Juneau, Canadian astronaut and
NASA
mission specialist. Each will make a brief statement, and then Kelly will open the floor for questions. Thank you.”

Our three spokespersons were already seated at the skirted table ready to go by the time Amanda had finally made it back down the steps. I toyed with suggesting that we use an inflatable slide to get her back down the next time she chaired a news conference, but decided just to keep that one to myself.

“Thank you, Amanda. Good morning everyone and thank you for coming. I’m Kelly Bradstreet from
NASA
. At this very moment, the head of
NASA
is making this same announcement in Washington. Ladies and gentlemen, for more than fifty years, space has been the exclusive domain of a very special breed of human beings. Only astronauts, test pilots, rocket scientists, chemists, physicists, astronomers, physicians, and other extraordinary and highly trained individuals at the absolute top of their respective fields have had the singular opportunity to venture beyond our atmosphere and view the Earth from the depths of space. Yes, we’ve seen one or two billionaires buy their way onto a mission, but in general, those who have felt the miracle of weightlessness have belonged to a very exclusive club.”

Kelly paused and made eye contact with the key reporters we’d pointed out, before getting to the heart of the matter.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to change the face of the space program forever. We are about to open space up to average Americans and Canadians, whoever they are, whatever they do, wherever they live. Welcome to the era of the Citizen Astronaut.”

Kelly then proceeded to brief the reporters on the details of the Citizen Astronaut contest, including the eligibility rules and
NASA
’
S
final say on who would fly. And she was good. She knew what she was doing, and she knew how to command a room. I’d seen her remarks in advance and thought they were fine. But they were so much better when she delivered them than when I’d read them on the page. At the designated point in the program, Kelly invited Armand Gelinas to offer his thoughts on the program from the
CSA
’
S
perspective. He was a little nervous. I could tell, and perhaps others could too, because he insisted on holding his notes in his hands. The paper was vibrating in his trembling fingers with enough amplitude to fan the front row of reporters. Okay, I exaggerate. But his hands were shaking. He got through his remarks in French and English and threw to Martine Juneau, who would fly with the winning Canadian citizen. Gracious, self-deprecating, bilingual, funny, and above all, authoritative, Martine was a star. How could she be anything but, with a PhD in aeronautical engineering and a Master’s in philosophy? The media ate it up.

Much to my surprise, there actually weren’t that many questions when Kelly opened the floor. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, the concept and rules of the contest were not
hard to grasp. They’d been explained very well. And the media kits provided complete details. As well, the vidcam shooters in particular went rushing out the door as soon as the Q&A wound down. They were clearly trying to get back to their stations to cut and produce their stories in time for their noon newscasts. It had been a slam dunk. Diane had watched quietly from the back and gave me a thumbs-up when it was all over.

“Well, we’re out of the gate, and I don’t see how it could have gone any better,” I said as I raised my glass to Amanda.

She’d stuck her head over top of my cubicle divider on her way out at about 8:30 that night and asked if I wanted to join her for a drink to celebrate. I figured yes was the right call. We walked to a bar down the street from the office. She drank three big glasses of Chardonnay in about forty minutes while I nursed a beer. I wasn’t really much of a drinker, but I didn’t want to piss her off by ordering a ginger ale when she was clearly in the mood to celebrate.

“I’m just so relieved that we made it through today without any disasters,” she said before dissolving into giggles. “And I didn’t fall off the stage! Yay!”

“Here’s to not falling off the stage!” I said, offering up yet another toast.

Clink
went our glasses. Some of her wine sloshed over the edge of her glass onto the floor – probably not a bad place for it at that stage. I’d never really seen this side of Amanda. She was actually
smiling quite consistently and had not looked at her BlackBerry for several minutes. Finally, she could restrain herself no longer and she stole a glance at her
BB
.