Pronoun Problems: A Novel About Friendship, Transgender and (eventually) Ninjas

49 - The Airhead Council

So. You know how Tom kept secrets from me when he was in the closet? But then, after tearfully confessing his deepest, darkest secret to me she emerged as the liberated, celebrated Tamara who no longer had to hide, no longer had any need for secrets, yay?

Well. About that.

Turns out that's not exactly how it went down.

In fact, more than a year after Tammy came out to me she was still keeping a number of secrets, the most significant of which was Coco. Or as Whitney referred to her, That Twat. (Full disclosure: Everything I knew about her I learned from Whitney, who was not only biased against Coco, but also pretty drunk.)

Coco was Tammy's hairdresser at some chichi salon that charged a hundred and seventy-five dollars for their styling services (the cucumber water was free). Whitney told me the name of the establishment, but it meant nothing to me. I didn't go to salons. I didn't even have a stylist. I had a barber. His name was Richard. He was a sixty-five-year old, morbidly obese right wing racist and misogynist (with a sprinkling of antisemitism as well) who learned his trade in the Navy aboard the USS Intrepid. He loved to tell me witless, repulsive jokes, swiveling me around in my chair to face him as he approached the punchline to see if I laughed, which over the course of twenty-five years, I never did.

But he charged eighteen bucks.

So anyway, here's why Coco was such a big deal. Tom had told me that I was the second person she came out to, after his ex-wife. But in reality he had also come out to Coco before me. Long before me. I cannot tell you how disruptive this new information was. Because in retrospect, the fact (ha!) that I was the second person Tom told was critical in preserving our friendship. Even while I was reeling from uncertainty I took great solace in how much I apparently meant to him.

I guess I felt the way that archeologists do when they discover a new human fossil that completely throws off what everyone had thought to be the timeline of human evolution. Today, the archeological community was stunned to learn that between Australopithecus sedona and Homo habilis there was a heretofore undiscovered species of human, Haircutterus twatus.

(That joke is dedicated to all you Roadrunner Show fans out there. Meep meep!)

Coco, Whitney informed me, was the first of Tammy's guides into womanhood. They spent a lot of time together. Coco took Tammy to the coolest clubs and the hottest bars, both LGBT and straight. (Unlike Richard, who never took me anywhere.) The two of them would dance late into the night, Tammy's anonymity protected alternately by blinding lights and darkness. This in particular was shocking to me. Tom hated dancing at clubs. Hated dancing in general. We would make fun of the idiots on the dance floor. And I wondered uncomfortably, Have I been holding her back this whole time?

Coco also set up what Whitney described with Chardonnay-fueled histrionics as a Shadow Government. (She also sometimes referred to it as The Airhead Council and Twats R Us.) She would get together with Tammy along with a few other hairdressers and shampoo assistants and give their opinions on whatever issue Tammy had been wrestling with. (Richard also gave me his opinions, mostly about The Blacks and what a bitch that Hillary Clinton was. He also did his own shampooing, which was extremely uncomfortable, his tricep fat flapping in my face.)

Whitney was deeply suspicious of all this. First, because Tammy hid Coco's existence from her, which Whitney saw as inherently suspicious, as did I. (Relationship tip: Unless it culminates in a surprise party, hiding things will always be seen as suspicious.) And second because Tammy was sharing intimate details about their relationship and — most galling of all — they always took Tammy's side. Which, in fairness, I had done too. But I was Tom's best friend and I knew Whitney, so I had a right to judge. But Coco? To quote The Most Popular Girls In School, Who the fuck are you?