This is a sequel to “Leading Lady”.

I’m quite happy to be back in the safety of my room in the all-girl boarding school I attend.

I have to admit that all the glitz of an Oscar gala can be intoxicating. It’s not everyone that has a mother that gets nominated for an Oscar but now I really need to rest and wind down.

The last year and a half have been crazy, absolutely crazy.

The school play was a huge success. The production was in every way professional. It’s amazing what money and an excellent Drama teacher can do. What none of us could have predicted was that one of the parents had recently hooked up with a theatre producer that just happened to have an off-Broadway theatre available the first weeks of June due to a huge blow-up in the ensemble that should have used it. You could practically see the dollar signs in his eyes when he realised the potential. Not that we were that great. Not that we weren’t good, even very good but our main selling point was the cast, or more exactly the parents of the cast. Very little promotion was necessary to sell an all-girl production of a risqué play with all the actors coming from the upper crust in British society (including some high nobility). We? We just thought that performing at a rather well-known theatre in New York would be fun. The adventure of it all! To be honest maybe it was also spending those weeks in the Big Apple without parental control that appealed. Of course that didn’t apply to me. My mother was very much present.

We played for sold-out houses every night (and matinée). We even got fairly good reviews, with one exception. The reviewers went nuts over the leading lady. Not only the acting, that they commended in overflowing terms. But it was the powerful sexy aura of the leading lady that really bowled them over. Soon I started getting propositions. Not ALL of them lewd. I got offered acting roles in films. Not as a leading lady of course but not insignificant supporting roles. So as soon that the “school play” left the theatre Mum and I left as well, heading further west. Go west young man? I had accepted a role in a teen comedy as the girl who tried to seduce the main boy away from the main girl. People in the business noticed me favourably. Part of it was because I did a good job. Part of that was also was because of Mum. She had worked with many of them before. At first she had been reluctant to meet her old friends. I’m afraid that I might have been bit ruthless in making sure she did. I probably was happier for her sake than me about the summer. Ever since the accident my mother had not been happy. Oh, she had been trying to hide that for my sake but she is not THAT good an actress. I know her too well. On the set she revived in a way that I had despaired ever to happen again. I might have been pushing here and there to make all those encounters happen. Well, I had words with the very sympathetic director who in his turn had his assistant drop a word here and there.

Mum’s happiness was one main reason why I accepted another role to be shot over the Christmas break (Mum was dead set against me doing any film work during the school semester). This time in a more important supporting role as the demure girl next door who under the surface is passionately in love the leading man. Unrequited love leads me to do more and more extreme things. No more spoilers, if you want to know exactly how far I went you have to see the movie. Or not. By now the plot has been hashed over in media over and over again. One thing about that film. Did you notice I used the word “I” and not “my character”? I tend to immerse myself a bit too much in my roles. I have to be careful with that in the future.

Those “winter” weeks shooting in Hollywood were without contest the best ever in my life so far. My first film had just been released. I had become a bit famous since I was seen as an up-and-coming starlet due to my success in that film. But even more I enjoyed the bond that I developed with my mother. Not that we had that much time together but there we were, two actresses each shooting a film. Both? Yes!!!

My mother had consistently refused all roles offered her hitherto since she refused to play a role that had being a cripple as the centre theme. While I had been filming during the summer something else had come up. A role as the mother of a gender dysphoric boy. A mother that just happened to be using a wheelchair without any further emphasis on that aspect. I had nothing to do with that. Well not in any way related to the genderbending aspect. At the time everyone in Hollywood still believed that I was Mum’s daughter. On the other hand a bit of eye lash flutter and some less than innocent smiles directed towards a major investor just might have helped. Mum really showed them what a great actress she is. The screen had been deprived of her talent for too long but talent will prevail no matter what!

In the following summer I did two more films. Personally, I didn’t think I did that well but that was a minority opinion. Mum on the other hand had been given a leading role in another good film. Amazing what a slightly psychopathic mindset can arrange. I really have to watch how I immerse myself in my roles. Once more she showed them true quality acting. The only reason she accepted that role, shot on another location than my films was that I had finally convinced her that I could survive without her constant supervision. To be honest I didn’t really. I spent most of the time locked in my room whenever I wasn’t on stage. However, that was a small price to pay for my mother’s sake. So far so good.

Then the real madness began. The films Mum and I had shot during winter premiered. Both became box office hits. Both Mum and I were lauded as great stars for our respective roles. TV appearances, interviews and I don’t know what. I admit that I was quite relieved that I could evade most of it since I had school to attend. Phew.

Madness? Did I say madness? That was nothing compared to what happened when both Mum and I were nominated as Best Supporting Actress. Actually, the real madness only started when word got out that I wasn’t really a girl despite being a student at an all-girl boarding school (and a great girl actress). The school had some work to do to explain the situation to some upset parents. That was the minor matter. What to do with my nomination for Best Supporting Actress? I will not go into that circus. The end result was that I was kept on the nomination list. The word “quacks” was mentioned frequently. A decision not universally approved. I did not walk up the red carpet to the Oscar gala. I arrived in an armoured SUV at the back. Not necessary at it turned out but that had more than one advantage. Apart from my safety it allowed my mother to hug all the limelight. I had convinced her to make the most of it. She sure did. I doubt that any nominee has ever been greeted the way she was. By that time there was no doubt in my mind that I didn’t want to win. Oh, not for those bigots. I wanted Mum to win. This was to be HER night.

Now, back in the safety of my room in my all-girl boarding school I can finally relax. Perhaps for the first time I really appreciate to be stuck on an isolated island in the Outer Hebrides. I will miss Mother though. She resigned as a teacher to return to acting full-time.

Just imagine how appalled I had been two and a half years ago when I wound up on that island. How awful it was that I had been stuck on an isolated island with only hundreds of girls around me. At 14 I had still to discover girls as girls and afterwards my view of my fellow students had made further development somewhat distorted. I regarded my fellow students more as sisters than girls and you definitely don’t think about your sisters in a romantic way.

As I’m laying in my quite comfortable bed I contemplate my future. I have to factor in so many things. I really love acting. I really love sharing that with my mother, I wouldn’t say that I exactly love the money I make but it’s sure nice to have it (I remember all too well those months after the accident when we had practically nothing and the future even bleaker). On the other hand there is the antagonism. I’m also worried that so far I have exploited my femininity and sexiness. Despite all, I’m still a boy, sort of. I worry about the way I immerse myself into my roles. I also worry about my next big role.

I have accepted to play a young and newly graduated businesswoman that in the 60s masquerades as a man in order to make a career. Quite a fun and interesting part and it’s the lead. I think I will have no problem playing an “older woman”. I’m good enough an actor to do that. What worries me is if I can come across as “male” enough. That doesn’t exactly play to my strengths, at least what I have shown so far. On the other hand Mum says that I need to broaden myself.

…

Yes! Yes, I can do it. Mum overcame even worse obstacles than prejudice and she’d have won an Oscar this year if it hadn’t been for an obnoxious brat. Next year she’ll win an Oscar. If Mum overcame her handicap I can do it as well. I can man up. I can immerse myself into being a macho, macho girl.

The only thing is how I immerse myself in my roles, what will that do to me? After a “macho” summer I still have one year of school. In a school that I love. An all-girl school.

Then I look at the shelf to remind myself that I can do anything. Nothing is impossible for me.

I’m immensely proud of what that little golden figurine represents but I can’t help feeling a bit guilty for beating my mother.