Poster Child

We Set the Stage

Ellie was awakened early on a Sunday morning by the banging of pots and pans in the kitchen. This rude awakening could only be the works of her mother, Addison, as she tried to make breakfast.

Ellie's mother couldn't make breakfast to save her life, yet extravagance is the only thing anyone in the house got when she arrived back from a trip.

Ellie's mother was a renowned Pediatric surgeon and one of the most active members of Doctors Without Borders. Due to this, she was away quite often. Whether it was Africa or France (where she had a hospital dedicated to her), Ellie's mother always came back with a big bang.

She would actually try to do motherly things. Such as, make breakfast, pack Ellie a lunch, or try to get back on the PTA at Ellie's high school. All of these failed hours after Ellie's mother got settled back into the house.

BANG.

Ellie jumped. Another pot or pan or something fell over in the kitchen. She cringed. Why couldn't her mother just give up?

Stumbling through the hall in her knee-length nightgown and pink silk robe, Ellie took a quick swig of the whiskey in a crystal bottle her father kept in front of his office. The whiskey went down burning but Ellie was thankful. It woke her up.

"Ellie! Ellie! Ellie!" Her mother began exclaiming when Ellie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. She smothered her with a hug.

"Mother." Ellie tried keeping her cool but it was slipping away fast.

"You want waffles? I made waffles. The adorable people in Paris gave me this incredible recipe; I just had to try it! Sit, sit!"

So, she went to France this time, Ellie thought as she sat at the granite kitchen island, running her fingers in a circle, tracing the counter's pattern.

She jumped when a fine China plate sat in front of her, holding a thick waffle which was drowning in low-fat syrup.

Ellie's mother sat across from Ellie, with the same food on her plate. She was quickly shoveling hers into her mouth. Ellie just seemed to push her's around with a fork.

"So, what has happened in the week I've been gone?"

Ellie shrugged. There was nothing she could really talk about. The beginning of the week had been just school work and Starbucks. Towards the end is when everything began to spice up. She and her friends had hoped the border into New Jersey again. They had found that New York City attracted too many photographers, whereas New Jersey was perfectly quaint with a few teenagers drinking and doing lines.

"Just hung out with friends." Now, that wasn't a total lie. It was half of lie. It was still enough to get Ellie's mother to back off.

Ellie finally began cutting into her waffle when her father came walking down the hall.

Ellie's father had a welcoming feeling about him when he entered a room, which is probably why he was such a successful politician. In fact, he was currently one of the senators of New York. He even had plans to become Governor. Then, in a few years, his campaign group was predicting presidency.

Ellie always felt out when it came to her father's job. He openly expressed the fact he would not be taking Ellie or Ellie's mother with him when he would have to live in Washington D.C. Even if he becomes president, Ellie highly doubted she would even be near the White House.

She and her mother could just barely sense that they were used to obtain the "Family man" image for her father. She was upset by it but maintained her good girl cover for him. Why? She never knew.

"Morning, hon." Her father lightly pecked her mother on the lips. It was emotionless, the "kiss". She could see that in her mother's face.

"Good morning, how'd you sleep?"

Ellie's mother began losing her excited attitude. She lost her will to make her return extravagant. Like Ellie predicted.

"Peaceful. How was your trip?"

Ellie watched as her father skipped over her mother's waffles and just took a cup of coffee.

"Very nice, the hospital is doing great. We are becoming so popular over there we had to split the hospital into another wing and hire our third Chief of Surgery." Ellie's mother was slightly beaming with joy and it even made Ellie smile a bit. Her father, however, was checking his phone. He only nodded.

"Sounds lovely, we need to get over there sometime." He then left the room.

For years Ellie has been hearing "we all need to visit your hospital!" from her father but yet he never made it happen. Ellie, of course, would love to see her mothers accomplishments but to her father, all relations outside of the U.S. were just background noise.

Ellie's mother sighed. She began collecting hers and Ellie's plates and mumbled a, "go get dressed." to her. Nodding, Ellie went off back into her room.

***

"Lacey, really it's an issue."

Hours later, Ellie sat with her best friend Lacey in Lacey's loft, above her parents' apartment.

Lacey was a very useful girl to Ellie. She made a great companion and always knew everything about anything.

Lacey's parents were defense lawyers who took on high profile cases. They both were in love with the camera.

What really got her family on the map, though, was years back, when Lacey was just a baby, her parents took on a case that stunned the nation. They both defended two college baseball stars who were accused of raping a 15-year-old girl. By the end of the trial, both of Lacey's parents had painted the victim has a lying whore who had seduced the boys but was scared to admit it because she was a virgin at the time. How they got to that point still baffled everyone but in the end, they won.

Lacey, however, lost respect for her parents upon hearing about the case years later.

Now they still go around blaming the victims and speaking to anyone with a camera. There were even rumors about a tv show lined up for them on CNN.

"What's the issue? Your sociopathic father leaving you guys for Washington DC? It's a blessing." Lacey shrugged and took a sip of her glass of vodka.

Ellie ran her finger around the top of her glass of whiskey.

"Fuck him," Ellie mumbled under her breath and drank all the whiskey in her glass at once.

"We need to go out tonight." Lacey wined and stood up from the floor. She paced around in her closet, running her hands through the fabrics of her shirts. Ellie sat on the couch, drinking another whiskey.

"It's Sunday."

"Boo-hoo." Lacey fake pouted. "We just skip tomorrow."

"We skip, our parents find out."

Lacey groaned. All kinds of media hounded parents never want to hear those dreadful 4 words: our parents find out.

"We can go out for a little while?"

"Lacey we never do Sunday's."

"Well you're sad and I have no more coke so we either go out or one of us internally combusts."

Ellie was silent for a moment. She thought it over and realized she needed a buzz.

"Let's go find Derek and Trey."