“I’m sending a car for you in the morning, sweetie. Come home. I’ll try to keep the media away. It’s going to be difficult but Danny says he won’t let any of them set foot in the theater—”

“Oh, grand-mère wants to say something.”

I handed the phone to my grandmother. Instead of speaking into it, she pressed the side button to disconnect the call.

“That useless woman! I can never see what Alastair saw in her. Sorry, Cherry, but it’s the way I feel. Now, help me make dinner. Sylvère will be home from his meeting in the city soon. We can talk while we cook.”

After dinner, grand-mère and Sylvère listened as I explained what was going on. I was caught between going underground again and hiding in boarding school or letting an avalanche of media attention make my life a waking nightmare. They both concurred that I needed to decide this for myself…since it was literally my life, not anyone else’s, including my mother.

“You can stay with us as long as you want, chérie,” grand-mère offered. “Stay all summer. Sylvère can drive you to class Tuesdays and Thursdays. Or you can take the train into the city. The station is only a few blocks away.”

“Thank you, both of you.”

“Now, take that delightful pooch of yours for its evening constitutional or I’m going to have some clean-up work to do later tonight,” Sylvère said, smiling.

I lay awake in bed that night, Alice emitting cute little doggie snores from beyond where my toes stretched. I felt like the only trans girl in the world, with millions of invasive eyes trained on me, waiting for me to explain myself, to justify my very existence. The Balsam brothers will blame me for the failure of the play, months before it even opens. Danny Dantley will blame me for putting a big stain on his resume. Maia Everly won’t get to see her play produced on Broadway. Trent Foster will…oh, who cares about him! And, finally, Mom won’t have a second chance at reuniting with her one true love, David Wetherell. All because I was never a boy in reality.

Maybe the best thing would be if I went back to the anonymity of Mirage Canyon high school, deep in the San Fernando Valley, away from the bright lights of Broadway and the prying, disapproving looks of the teeming millions. With that thought I closed my eyes and slowly dozed off.

Having resolved my dilemma, I woke up early the next morning and took Alice for a walk in grand-mère’s neighborhood of stately, upper middle-class homes. Sensing my own bonhomie, Alice traipsed about the quiet streets, happily seeking out a nice spot to unburden herself. I was wearing my Taylor Swift t-shirt and jean shorts, staying cool in the late July heat, sweltering even this early in the day. Coincidentally, I started thinking about how stupid I was to believe Carson liked me because of me, rather than trying to get an in with Trent Foster. He used me. I allowed him to use me. Anger boiled up in me. Alice looked up at me as she busily sniffed at a fire hydrant, preparing to do her duty.

“Do you think Anders will forgive me for leaving him and Charlotte in the lurch?” I asked Alice. “I’ll text him a mea culpa when I’m back at Mirage Canyon.” I twisted the ties on the poop bag and walked over to drop it into the trash bin on the corner. That’s when I saw the people coming out of the broadcast van across the street. One was aiming a camera at me, the other, a young blonde woman, was rushing toward me with a microphone in her right hand. I picked up Alice and ran back toward grand-mère’s house.

“You’re out of breath, Cherry. What’s happening?” asked Sylvère, sitting at the breakfast table.

“It’s some TV reporter! There’s a van parked across the street…” I managed to explain between gulps of air.

The front doorbell rang.

“Those nasty people! I’ll shoo them away.” Grand-mėre strode to the door, opened it and didn’t give them a chance to even utter a greeting.

“I’ve called the community patrol. They’ll be here in minutes. If you’re not gone by then, they’ll politely escort you off my property and out of the neighborhood. Please don’t come back!” She slammed the door in their faces.

The whirring sound of a police siren grew louder, signaling the imminent arrival of the community’s private security force.

“Grand- mėre, how did you get the police here so quickly?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I saw you running up the street through the kitchen window and the van was right on your heels. I had Sylvėre call immediately. They’d have to get up earlier than this to sneak themselves past me.”

The rest of the morning was spent fending off phone calls, texts, even e-mails from everyone under the sun. A number of media outlets tried to get in touch with me through grand-mėre’s phone. She turned them all down in her usual acerbic, Gallic manner. Unless they spoke French, I guessed they had no idea how she ended the phone calls. One phone call did get through though. Bob Balsam convinced her that she should let him speak to me. So I took the call.

“…won’t leave us alone until they get access to you. They’re like vultures, these so-called journalists. If we accept a few requests from friendly media, we can make the best of this…this controversy. Maybe an exclusive with Ashlee Woolcott from Entertainment World Now. She’s LGBTQ+ friendly…I think.”

“This could sink the whole production and we haven’t even gone into previews yet. You’re putting us all in a precarious position. Millions are at stake. And your mother’s career would be adversely affected—”

Bob got so loud that grand-mėre overheard him and swiped the phone from my hand.

“Listen, Mr. Balsam, my grand-daughter is not at fault for existing, much to society’s dismay. She owes you nothing. Certainly not her ability to be left alone and live her life as she wishes. As for her mother, if she was any kind of mother…”

She pressed the side button and disconnected the call. She turned to me.

“Don’t let these people bully you, chérie. I wish Alastair wasn’t in Europe right now. He has some connections in the entertainment media.”

“It’s alright. I’ve decided to go back to school in California. My return ticket is still good.”

I spent the afternoon negotiating a seat on a return flight to LAX. There was a hefty fee though, which I paid with Mom’s Amex card. So I was all set to board a red-eye flight late Wednesday night. Uncustomarily, I decided to wash all my dirty clothing and was in the garage where grand-mėre kept her washing machine and dryer when the front doorbell rang.

“Cherry! You have friends come to visit,” Sylvėre announced. I dropped the laundry basket on the concrete floor of the garage and ran back into the house.

Standing in the foyer, chatting with grand-mėre were Anders and, surprisingly, Trent Foster.

“Anders! Nice to see you! And Trent! What a surprise. Don’t waste your time, guys. I’m not coming back—”

“They’re not here to abduct you, chérie. They have an intriguing idea,” grand-mėre explained.

“Let’s all sit down and discuss it. Okay?” Trent shot me a conciliatory look. Anders smiled broadly.

Once we were seated in the living room, Trent looked around and nodded to himself.

“This will be fine. If we start in an hour or so, the late afternoon sun will give it a nice glow.” He turned back to me and grand-mėre. “So…the problem is that any access that you give to the media will be entirely on their terms. Even if they got friggin’ Oprah Winfrey to interview you, the audience would only get a jaundiced presentation of who you are. They’re more interested in the salacious aspects of your story—”

“Salacious? What’s salacious about me? I’m a teenage girl!”

“Well, your mother’s kind of notorious—”

“Watch it! You’re the one who seduced my mom! You’re the salacious one!”

“Hey, I’m sorry. Let’s drop that topic. I’m here to help you. Okay?”

“Help me how? I’m on a plane back to California tomorrow night. Later for this garbage.”

“I thought you really wanted to finish our film course and the short film we were working on. Charlotte’s really bummed about it, you know.” Anders kept his eyes on me as I struggled to reply.

“Well, yes, I did. But…but they won’t leave me alone. You understand, don’t you?”

“I think we found a way to do just that. Leave you alone. Leave the play alone so we can continue to prepare to open in September. The play means a lot to all of us, not just the Netherlander Organization. We…I care about you too. We don’t want you to be hurt in all of this either,” Trent emphasized.

“Anything that could keep Cherry here with us instead of hiding in a dorm room in Chatsworth would be welcome to Sylvėre and I. We absolutely adore her,” grand-mėre said, brushing my hair with her right hand.

“Here’s the plan,” Trent began. “I have 10 million followers on Tik Tok—”

“10 million?!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, it’s not that much compared to Taylor Swift,” Trent remarked as he pointed to my t-shirt. “But it’ll do. I want to livestream with you…and your grandmother, if she’ll agree. I’m going to introduce you to the world, have you tell your story, and why you’re being unfairly hounded by the mainstream and social media. When they see that you’re just like any other pretty, wholesome teenage girl, they’ll be supportive. And get the media hounds off your back. It’s a good plan, Cherry.”

“Wow. That’s really considerate and nice of you, Trent. I would’ve never expected you to be so…so thoughtful.”

“Well, it was really Anders’ idea. He came by the theater and pitched me the concept this morning. I thought it had a good chance to work. So he grabbed a camera and a lighting kit and we jumped into my car…and here we are.”

“Anders! Thank you! Thank you!” I leaped off the sofa and kissed Anders on both cheeks.

“Don’t I get a kiss too?” Trent leaned his face in and closed his eyes.

“No, it was Anders’ idea. You get a handshake.” We shook hands.

“We have about an hour until the light turns golden through the windows so let’s work on your extemporaneous remarks.”

Hey, everyone. I’m coming to you live today from a suburban home in Westport, Connecticut to introduce you to a remarkable young lady named Cherry Brooks. Cherry is the daughter of a famous actor, Lulu Brooks, currently rehearsing a Broadway play, Blues for a Diva, which not so coincidentally I’m co-starring in. But, here’s the problem. A lot of media, both mainstream and social, have decided to make an issue of the fact that Cherry is transgender. That’s right. She is a 17-year-old girl to anyone who knows and meets her. Some people seem to have a problem with that and it’s making it impossible for Cherry to lead her life as she wishes, quietly and undisturbed by invasive curiosity and, in some cases, outright hatred. I won’t stand for this and I’m sure most of you out there agree with me. Cherry wants you to understand that being transgender doesn’t make her unnatural or a monster. She is and always was a girl. Inside. Now she is transitioning to her true identity.

The camera tilts down to follow Alice as she passes in front of Trent’s feet and approaches Cherry, sitting on the sofa with her grandmother. Cherry picks up Alice and looks into the camera.

My name is Cherry. I’m transgender. I’ve known I was really a girl since I was 4 or 5 years old. Even though I was born a boy, I knew my body did not reflect my true gender. This is called dysphoria. The feeling of being in the wrong outward physical shell only intensified as I grew up and the advent of puberty made my dysphoria reach critical mass. Fortunately, my mother and my step-father, Alastair Knowles, cared enough and loved me enough to have me seek counseling and medical assistance to confirm my dysphoria and I started transitioning shortly before my 16th birthday. I am blessed to have family like my grandmother and her husband Sylvėre as well as so many friends and schoolmates who have readily accepted me for what I am…simply a 17-year-old girl from California, here in New York for the summer. I just want to be treated the same way as any other teenage girl, no better and no worse.

After Cherry’s remarks, the camera shifts to her grandmother.

…she is so precious to me. My only grandchild. Was I surprised when Cherry began to transition? No, it was clear to me and everyone that, from the earliest age, this is a girl. It has been a circuitous route to claiming her true gender but, here she is, a wonderful young girl, talented, thoughtful of others, and, as you can see, beautiful. I cannot imagine why anyone would deny her the right to live her true identity and become an example of womanhood for all to admire. I cannot imagine that.

“So, what do we do now?” I asked as Anders packed up the lighting kit and camera.

“Watch the comments roll in,” Trent answered, an open laptop on the coffee table in front of us.

“Oh my, we’ve already gotten 1,100 comments,” Sylvėre exclaimed.

“And 20,000 likes,” grand-mėre proudly announced.

“Thank you, Anders,” I gushed.

“What about me?” Trent asked.

“Thank you too, Trent.” Trent smiled and placed his hand over his heart. “But I still don’t want you being involved with Mom.”

Trent frowned.