Treating it like a matter-of-fact account seems best. Imagine there really are hired puppeteers. At first I thought this was about a trans sibling, and Michell

Treating it like a matter-of-fact account seems best. Imagine there really are hired puppeteers. At first I thought this was about a trans sibling, and Michelle was the post-transition, Jeff the public male she had acted and down abandoned. The not now closeted Michelle's (?) peevishness was confusing. Then it became clear there were three people, Michelle, crabbed Jeff, and invented public Jeff. We don't know anything about Michelle except that she scripted a good public Jeff. We each script our own public Jeff that resembles our inner Jeff to the degree that we are satisfied with the latter's (our own) place in society, and his (our) willingness to put in the work maintaining the other.