Chapter 14

Seeing the Truth

I had settled into a routine at work and balanced my play with learning more about tattooing every chance I got.  I kept trying to find any information about Mike’s whereabouts but kept coming up short. I was looking for another piercer since it was now just me. Since I was doing the management for not only the San Diego shop but also the LA shop, I was in the shop almost 12 hours a day. Finally I found another piercer to help me spread out my shifts to be able to give myself time off.

One night while talking to another shop owner over drinks at a local sangria bar, I finally got a lead on Mike.  Most of the shops in San Diego knew each other very well and we all worked together to keep a great community going. If one artist specialized in one thing, we would send people his way. This owner had at one point had a piercer that did not have very good experience with nose piercings, the clients came to our shop complaining, so I called him to help his piercer know the issues that were walking out the door. Since then the owner Art, had made sure to reach out with his appreciation. While talking to Art he told me what the news down the grapevine was with Mike.

Mike had been having issues with Bernie while I was gone. I was spared the main details but Art said that Bernie had a track record of things that would lead up to what happened. Art had worked for Bernie years before and she had basically done the same thing to him, only on a much larger scale. Bernie started causing issues and fired Mike a week before my return. She had locked Mike out of the shop and taken all his tools then blamed him for trying to break in to get his tools back as her excuse to change the locks. When I returned she had claimed that Mike was stealing money and she fired him, but never explained why his tools were still there except that he left them. Once Art told me everything , it all made sense. I wasn’t that close with Mike but I definitely didn’t think he would just leave them. I had kept them together for him in hopes that he would reach out to me so that I could give them back. I didn’t believe the story that he had stolen money but I thought that Bernie was just making an excuse to her just firing him since no one could confirm what he took. I guess Mike had also gotten angry that I hadn’t found him and now thought that I was on Bernie’s side and helped to steal his tools. Art and I talked and I asked him to spread the word to Mike that I had his tools in safe keeping, wherever he was ready to get them.

The pieces started to fall into place. Art warned me of her antics so that I could avoid the same fate. I will forever be grateful to him for the warning. I kept what I knew a secret so that I could bide my time until I was ready to make my move. 

I went back to work as usual. Most of the time I would work in San Diego and on Saturday nights I would take the train after my shift and travel to the LA shop to do the books for the week so that on Mondays I would deposit the money at the local bank.
Many times I would arrive late in the night and sleep in the LA shop, but once in a while I would get there early and go crash at one of the artist’s places on their couch. I never really got there in time to meet up with the  artist’s but it was nice when I did. The LA crew was pretty laid back and most of them I got along with, however there were 2 guys that I didn’t really trust in their energy.
The other 2 guys were relaxed and friendly so I spent most of my time relaxing with them when I wasn’t busy.  From time to time Bernie’s husband would stop into the shop and raid the safe for playing money and leave me notes so those days I would have to spend extra time balancing everything. 

One weekend Claire came back out to visit and we ventured to LA for my weekend round. She and I planned on hitting the city so I could show her around and go play. I had just finished the books and we were getting the night planned with one of the artists when Bernie’s husband came into the shop. He was a middle aged, mild build, black man with a bald head and no tattoos.  Some would consider him good looking , however he was most certainly not my type in many ways and the top reason being his personality. He overheard our planning for the night and introjected that Claire and I should go get a hotel room with him for the night and go have a threesome. The minute he said it, Claire and I shared a look. She knew my number one rule no matter what was I never shit where I eat when it came to work. Nevermind that he was not my type, he was my boss’s husband! There was no way in hell I was ever going to sabotage her marriage and my career with the shop. One of the other artists was sitting with us when the comment was made and even he looked at me in surprise. Claire and I laughed it off to make light of the situation and declined. If he was smart, he would’ve cut his ties and laughed as well. Instead he tried to convince us to partake in his fantasy. We both confirmed that we were going to be busy with other friends with prior plans, and tried to decline gracefully.  The silence after that was very uncomfortable, but he took the answer and left. The other artist joked about his audacity and I agreed it was over the line in any world.

That night Claire and I spent the night on the town. I took her to all my favorite watering holes from over the years. She was excited to see the places I had explained to her from the years before that I had been there. I took her to the bar I would hide in when I was with Joe and Jim. I took her to Red Rock bar, where I had spent many nights hiding in the back playing darts. As we sat there eating dinner enjoying the crowd, Jim (the trainer from my past) appeared in a group of people.
He locked eyes and smiled instantly.
While I had locked eyes with Jim, Claire had noticed a well known TV actor standing in the light of the kitchen talking on his phone.  She started smacking my arm to get my attention like a child while telling me to look. There in the doorway I saw him. The Actor that played in Dawson’s creek, it was” Dawson”, James in real life, but the main character. I confirmed it was indeed him and told her that she better get used to seeing stars since we were in the mouth of the Hollywood party scene. As we ate, once in a while I would look up and I locked eyes at one point with the actor. I smiled casually and went back to my conversation. A few minutes later Claire was smacking my arm again. I turned to her in frustration after the 4th hit and she whispered at me “ He’s staring at you!”  All I could do was laugh. I was used to being stared at by now and especially in Hollywood. I wasn’t your run of the mill Hollywood girl. Most of the girls were thin and all looked about the same. I was the one that stood out like a sore thumb. With my now black hair and tattoos with a curvy body, I was not your normal  sight.  I laughed it off and went back to my conversation. Minutes later I decided to venture out to the patio to have a smoke. We started through the crowd and “Dawson” came close enough to touch, locked eyes and said “hello” as we passed him. I smiled back and laughed a hello in response as I passed. Claire was now realing. When I got to the patio, there was Jim. Claire was babbling about how she couldn’t believe that “Dawson” tried to talk to me. Meanwhile Jim was now trying to include me in his group and tried pulling me into his conversation.  I was mentally laughing at the whole idea of this chaos. Here the poster child of the ultimate “boy next door” was trying to talk to the poster freak in the crowd. All while my ex Jim was trying to see if he still had a chance for fun. All I knew was I had Claire to worry about and I wasn’t going to stop for either of these guys until I showed Claire around town.
We made our way back into the restaurant and finished our dinner.   I paid the bill and we started our way to the exit. I was almost there when “Dawson” stepped in front of us, blocking my path.  We locked eyes and he asked,”Leaving so soon?” I could feel Claire’s hand squeeze my arm. I smiled at him and replied,  “I’ve got people to do and places to see.” He smiled back and started to ask if he could buy us a drink when mid “drink”, some small woman came barreling past me and smacked him clear across the face. Claire and I stood stunned in silence for a second as what I could only assume was his girlfriend began her descent into an argument. We laughed quietly and excused ourselves as the couple continued in their banter. As I passed by saying,”looks like you’re a little busy.”

Claire was getting the show of a lifetime that trip. We went to the Rainbow room and saw Slash eating at a table with friends then as we left we were invited to a house party by some eccentric man in his 60’s driving away in a gold Excalibur. The house party was full of performers and magicians all showing their skills from basic magic tricks to fire spinners, it was my kind of crowd. Later that night Jim even tracked us down at that house party and tried to convince me to go home with him. It was a rollercoaster of a day and at the end of the night, we both crashed at a local friend’s place.  

Claire went back home a few days later and I was back to work. Bernie left town a week later to go to her salon in Italy. While she was gone I was left to tend the shops. The other piercer Kent was starting to make comments that cued me to warning signs that he might be working with Bernie behind my back to try to phase me out. I took Art’s warning to heart and immediately pulled my tools from the shop.  The next check in call from Bernie, my suspicions were confirmed when she scolded me for taking my tools out of the shop and requested I bring them back for Kent.  Knowing that he was a much more seasoned piercer I argued that I was now doing piercings freehand {which I had done mostly anyway}. Bernie had no argument left when I brought up that Kent should have his own tools if he was as seasoned as we thought.

I could tell my days at the shop were coming to an end. It was only a matter of logistics now and I knew there was No logical reason she could claim.

It was 4 days before Bernie’s return that her husband set the trap.

Unbeknownst to the LA shop I got stuck at the South shop all night on a night that I was supposed to be there for bookkeeping. The south shop had been so busy that night that I stayed up with Dan and Dave until 5am with 3 clients in the shop. When the clients left, the boys and I had laid out the sleeping bag in the office on the floor and all crashed out from exhaustion. The next morning/afternoon when we woke up at 11:45, just before opening the shop,  Deb arrived. We were all laughing about the night before and talking about how I was going to get some coffee and head to LA when the phone rang.

I picked up the phone to hear from one of the guys, Juan, from the LA shop. Juan was not one of my favorites, I knew he was friends with Bernie’s husband. He asked if I had made it to the shop the night before and done the books already. I explained I hadn’t made it there yet since I got stuck at the south shop all night and he dove into a questionnaire asking if I gave anyone else the safe code. Someone supposedly, had gone into the safe and taken one of the employee’s savings money that he kept in the safe and left the empty envelope on top of the desk. I immediately knew it was Bernie’s husband since he was the only one with the code and the tendency to raid the safe for party money. I voiced my suspicion and Juan claimed to have asked him already with no success to an answer. Juan jumped right into accusations of me giving the code to another artist. I could smell the plot thickening since it was the artist that witnessed the proposal just a month before.  I explained that if I wanted to steal it, I sure wasn’t going to be with money that could be tracked and had been tallied versus the money I could skim off the books without anyone knowing. Once I pointed out that I also wouldn’t have an accessory to my thievery and there was obvious evidence this was a set up he hung up on me.
The game was set. Everyone in the South shop watched the phone call unravel and knew what was happening after that.

I went to the LA shop to check the books and sure enough the safe drops were exact but the savings money was gone. I now awaited the arrival of Bernie.
Bernie called 2 days later wanting to set up a shop meeting in LA when she touched down. I explained how I had witnesses to my actions and how I knew it was a set up. She tried to smooth it over with me and say it was all a formality, she knew I wouldn’t steal and she trusted me. When I arrived at the meeting the attitudes were in high gear and Bernie’s husband was in full blame mode. Once I laid out the reason why he was blaming me and laid out the proposition he made, he went into full lying mode to try to deflect. At the end of the meeting Bernie made a declaration that both of us would have to pay to replace the money equally, but I knew there was nothing equal going on. I tried to hand her the keys to the shops and safes before I left. I wasn’t going to be accused of stealing and leave with the keys for her to make it a larger amount. Bernie refused to take the keys while telling me that she trusted me and would see me in the south shop in 2 days.
I knew they were laying the groundwork for the great lie.
I rode the train home and once I got there I handed the keys directly to Deb. I wanted absolutely no reasons for anyone to be able to blame me. I explained everything that went down and Deb knew this was the end of the road for the shop.
I had decided I wouldn’t look back and since I had nothing left at the shop and the next day off it was time to figure my next move.

The next morning I received a call from Patti. The universe has made some moves and it was calling me back to Florida.
Patti was complaining about her staff at her salon and just happened to ask me to come back to help her in her salon. As much as I knew it wouldn’t work out well if I stayed too long, I also knew if I didn’t go it would be more drama on both ends. I spent the rest of the day plotting my talk with Bernie. By the next morning I was still trying to figure out the most relaxed way to walk away. Bernie on the other hand was looking to start a fight and demanded I be at the cafe next to the shop that afternoon. I refused to play, so instead I went to the movies. I was just about to go into the movie itself, when Bernie called my cell phone asking my whereabouts and when I would be arriving. This was my time. I politely told her that I wasn’t going to be arriving and I wouldn’t be coming back to the shop at all since the recent events only confirmed my suspicions more that she was plotting to take the money and ignore the wrongdoings. Bernie got heated, she started threatening to call immigration on my husband and threatening to out my marriage as fake. I casually replied that two could play that game since she was still not a US citizen. We both knew her husband had a history of cheating and now I had witnesses to his proposal .I knew no matter what I did she would try to cause issues. When she mentioned the keys I told her to ask Deb. I let her know that  Deb had the keys since I had arrived back from LA. Checkmate.
Bernie was seething and I could hear it. She started spraying a slew of profanities at me as I hung up and walked into my movie and turned off my phone.

Deb told me all about how Bernie came into the shop fuming and she handed her the keys to then only walk away and go to her client. The guys at the shop had already heard all about my decision and were now upset to watch me go as they all knew it was a set up. Everyone in the shop ignored Bernie and went about their days working without talking to her. Only Kent, the piercer that was to replace me, was happy to be Bernie’s lackie. (I hope he got his karma in that game.)

I spent the next 2 days packing up my things and saying my goodbyes. I visited Art to offer up my appreciation for his words of warning and it had already gotten out about my leaving. The shops had all heard about how I beat her to her own game. Art commented on how he wished I wasn’t leaving  and offered up a position at his shop. As much as it would’ve been amazing I knew it was time to exit San Diego.
Dan and Dave came to wish me well and I knew I would miss them since we were always the last ones standing in the shop. Mazzo and I shared a hug as I loaded up the last of my things and Deb and I said our peace.

I left San Diego and ventured back across the country back to Florida.

I arrived in Boca Raton at my mother’s house and settled in for the ride. After learning that there was a tattoo convention the next week, I jumped at the chance to buy my own equipment. Patti offered up her credit card to pay for my supplies as a birthday present l. After learning about my permanent make-up skills she had started bragging to everyone that I was a permanent make-up artist. She was excited to offer that service to the salon. I accepted the card with the promise to pay her back as soon as possible.

I hated being in Boca. The people were judgemental and rude. There were no fake niceties or indifference. I was the outcast and most people visually showed repulsion. Couples would lock their cars at stop lights, women looked down their nose at me even at gas stations. I had been there not long ago, but my hair was now short and black and I had more tattoos that were visible. In their eyes I was no better than a ghetto junkie and some even voiced that view to my face. It was disgusting to think that these people had the money they did with that attitude. Watching their actions definitely showed me that money didn’t buy class or humanity. It made me sick to my stomach to think about their businesses employees and how they were probably treated.

The girls at the salon were all nice,many stood up for me when their clients made comments. Many times the girls would even warn me of their clients’ attitudes and plot to basically make them eat crow by having me just be me despite their hate. I felt like I was in a constant state of defense.
Patti was on her nice swing so I just tried to keep going and save as much as I could. I started working at the salon a few days a week doing the front desk and tattooing part time. I knew that the salon would never give me all the experience I wanted.  I was becoming known as strictly a permanent make-up artist and I wanted more in the art realm. I started working part time at another tattoo shop as an on-call specialty body piercer. The tattoo shop wasn’t far from the salon so it made it easy to travel back and forth. I started making friends in the community at the salon. I met owners of hotels, mega corporation owners and rubbed elbows with some very prominent people. There were times when I would go to a nice restaurant for a drink or to meet with a client. I would get disapproving looks from those who didn’t know me. The bartenders and wait staff had started to know me and were the only ones to treat me as an equal. I would get faster service from time to time if the staff knew me. It caught the eye of a local plastic surgeon one evening and he came to inquire how I was treated with more speed. Once I explained that I was an artist and knew some of the staff. He appreciated the cantor and we became acquaintances. The locals in Boca started to warm up to me slowly, but I was always having to defend my existence.
I voiced my aggravation to Patti about the ugliness of that society and she called me crazy and told me that I was just reading into it more. Once again brushed off my feelings. She was one of them, always criticizing my appearance or style.
I had kept scarce contact with Claire and she had been avoiding me since moving in with her boyfriend. I had met him before I left the Keys years before and I knew he wasn’t going to be a good influence. Turns out I was right to not like him.

Claire called me crying and begging for me to come and rescue her from his house. 

They had moved to his parents on the other side of the state.  I liked the guys parents, just not him.I had met his mother, Swamp, in the Keys before as well and she and I had shared many laughs. She and her husband, Indian, were old school bikers and she was a strong woman on many levels. I drove across the state and went to retrieve Claire.

When Claire finally got into the car, she was a shadow of herself. Her boyfriend had gotten her strung out on Heroin and gotten physically abusive. She had avoided talking to me so that I wouldn’t find out in case she let anything slip. I was enraged. Claire had hit rock bottom and detoxed herself for the last 2 weeks and now just wanted to escape. At the end of the drive home I was ready to kill her ex. Her father had encouraged her to stay with him and completely accepted him into their life but I was still the bad guy in his eyes so she came to stay with me and Patti. Claire was used to Patti and her antics so there wasn’t any push back. Patti didn’t completely approve of Claire but tolerated her.

Life went on. I worked and tried to keep Claire and I out of the house as much as possible. Claire had gotten a job at a local florist shop and started to save for her own car. I kept working at  both the shop and the salon.  

I knew I wasn’t going to stay forever in Boca, Claire and I started our plan. We decided that we wanted to travel and see the Top of the country and make our way to California again, only this time stay north. We began saving every spare dollar we could. 

I still tried to go to Lauderdale from time to time and see the guys, but I tried to keep my distance since D and Angie were always a looming problem. D’s mom even reached out and would want to meet up from time to time. Truth be told, I really missed her vibrancy in my life.

I tried hanging out more in Boca to save my sanity, but I could handle only so much. I was the novelty friend they would call to spice up the party. I wouldn’t take the rude comments from any of the posh and pampas. I would get called to a party just to put people in their place if the host didn’t like the attitude of the guest. I was the poster child of an outspoken roaster for the ego maniacs. Claire would join in just to watch the show. I was becoming  known as the smack of truth. I realized that if I allowed them to continue with the rude comments that they would only keep going , but if I slung the rudness back, they would cower. The hosts would even give me the ammo I needed to roast the person of interest. Some days it was too easy calling a person out on their shit. The big fat  doctor who had the cute little girl on his arm, was only there for the money. The amount of gold diggers that came from nothing now trying to look down their noses at anyone who wasn’t in the status bracket. The Con men who constantly were trying to swindle the people into “business” deals. The amount of deceit and superiority complexes was disgusting. I really started to hate the mannerisms of the wannabe “Elite” crowd. To me they were more like a snake pit trying to out snake each other. Claire and I would try to escape the gatherings as much as possible. 

It was almost a year and a half later when Claire and I finally saved enough to  escape the mouth of the rat.

We packed up my car and headed to the Keys for her to say her goodbyes to her dad before we were going to leave the state. Mike had offered up his couch for the night and had wanted to surprise Claire with something the next morning. When we arrived at his trailer, instead I was turned away and told to go sleep in my car, claiming he had no room for me and only enough room for her. I had known he would pull some kind of stunt to get me gone. Forget that I had fed and kept his daughter with a roof over her head with no payment, never even charging her rent. Forget that I had helped her to keep off drugs, I was still the bad guy in his eyes. I anticipated his sabotage and  planned on sleeping in my tent on the beach in just this case. Claire showed her disdain and came with me for the night. But her loyalty was short-lived when we showed up to Mike’s work the next day to find that he planned for her to go skydiving as a surprise.  Claire and I had talked multiple times about doing it and her dad worked as the pilot. When I asked if I could go and even offered to pay, I was turned down. I sat and watched as Claire went and loaded up and took her jump, all the while all I could think about was how I was the asshole in the situation. When Claire landed I was still happy for her experience but knew she didn’t care that I was turned away. She even commented that I probably would’ve had trouble breathing anyway so it was for the better that I didn’t go, in her snide attitude.

I wanted to do nothing more than find my place where people actually gave a fuck and didn’t just use me for whatever they could get.

The next day we set out on the road. I bought a magic eight ball to be my psychic advisor. I figured for once I would just go where the wind would take me. I had already seen the worst in people so now I was on a mission to find where the universe wanted me. I was on my hunt for humanity.

It took us a whole month to get from south florida to Pennsylvania. We stopped whenever the magic eight ball instructed. I had decided to make our way north and see my friend Chris that had settled there after Ocean City. I wanted to visit him and then continue north back to the little town I had been in years before. 

When we arrived at Chris’s there was a full house of people. Chris was excited to see us and he planned on a keg party for the night to celebrate. Claire and I felt right at home.  Many faces at the party were open and smiling. Everyone was either tattooed or pierced and most were in the business at one point.  It was a much needed breath of fresh air compared to Boca Raton. I met so many great energies that night. The neighbors came and joined in on the party and everyone was so amazing. There were train hoppers, performers,circus freaks, dancers, bikers, punk rockers and a bunch of piercers all in one place, enjoying life. I made friends instantly with many of the locals and was excited to make new friends. One guy Jake in particular made my night with his quirky antics. He and I instantly became friends over the 2 liter in his jacket.  We both weren’t big drinkers of beer so we became the more sober friends. Claire absorbed as much as she could with the different  personalities.

 The next morning Chris and I talked over a hot cup of tea about the events of the night before. We sat there reminiscing about the times in Ocean City. Claire and I hadn’t planned on staying long but after 2 days of being there Chris invited us to move in and become roommates. We consulted the eight ball and it  answered ”yes” so we made it official.  

Next step was finding a job.

I found the local tattoo shop and was hired on the spot. Chris had started aviation school and was roofing on the side to make the bills. His one roommate Matt was in Nursing and working at a private home care for mental disabilities. I had warned Claire not to hook up with any of the roommates, but she had instantly taken to Matt and was now starting to make her way  into his bed. 

The tattoo shop crew had taken to me quickly. They welcomed me into their clique the first week.  The owner of the shop was a tall good looking biker man with  dark hair and light eyes with a love for cigars, named Joe John. The rest of the shop crew was an assortment of skater punks, bikers and art geeks, just my type of crew. I had made friends with a girl named Brandie at the keg party and she and I shared the same birthday and a love for whiskey. It wasn’t long after that her and I celebrated our birthday at the local bar drinking Irish car bombs all night. We stumbled out to my Jeep and made our way to her house but not without playing through a frew corn and wheat fields first. Chris and I would meet at the end of our days and shoot the shit while sitting over a plate at dinner or an end of the night cocktail next to the bonfire in the backyard.The house was known as Camp Hate. Everyone that stayed on the property liked their privacy when it came to the outside world. It was a constant flow of laughter and fun when everyone was home. On occasion we would all party and do suspensions (hanging from hooks in the piercing sense) in the woods just because we wanted to or just have a rowdy weekend of partying.

 But as the time passed I started to feel like I was slowly being ostracized. Brandie and I had seen the shift and would talk about it over study sessions for nursing school. I had become her study partner in my off time so that I could learn more while getting out of the house. When I wasn’t working or with Brandi I would be scouting the mountains and local area doing photography. Claire had migrated right into the folds with Matt who was becoming very possessive around her. Claire and Matt were dating and they also had Chris in their circle more and more. 

I had called my grandmother to check in on her and she had asked me to go check on the house up north claiming that she was having problems from the city. To escape the Claire and crew attitude I went on my day off and found that the house was in horrible condition. The yard was overgrown and above my waist, the firepit was filled to the brim with bottles and glass, the house needed love. When I went in to further inspect, I found 6 people living there without my grandmother’s knowledge. Come to find out that my Aunt Kathy’s old party buddy had moved in and was lying to Jane(Pat) that he was maintaining the property. There had been over 6 rooms where the pipes had burst the past winter and had warped the walls and wood flooring. Jane begged me to clear out the extra people and clean up the house before it was to be condemned.

I spent the next few weeks driving back and forth every day off, to clean out the property. The locals had heard I was back in town and Angel and her family reached out to spend time together. I spent every day off working on the house and trying to clean up the property. Eventually I started tattooing friends in the area for help. 

I could feel the distance with the Camp Hate crew growing more and more. Finally Brandie and I sat and talked about the awkwardness that had grown over the house. Brandie had started to be ostracized as well and found that Claire was the base to it all. Behind our back Claire had painted a much different picture to the crew on our relationship and they had now sided with her without conversing with me. Chris and I’s relationship had suffered with Claire’s workings and he snapped at me one day letting the lie she had told him roll out. That was when I learned the true extent of Claire’s deceit. I had to clear the air with Chris and when I was done shedding light to her lies, he humbly apologized. Claire had painted a picture of me as the controlling mother that dictated her every move and had been a burden to her sister and an annoyance. It all made sense now, in the actions of the whole house and their ostracizing tactics. Jake and Brandie had been the only ones to stay true to me in the whole process and now that I had been gone to the house on my days off Claire had ran rampant with her lies. Chris was getting ready to leave on his own new adventure and with me being gone at the house up north I felt it was time to move on. I consulted the magic eight ball and it confirmed it was time to go. 

T, Angel’s brother, and I had started to hang out again and now that he was over 18 I felt better about the flirting situation with him. He and I worked on the house tearing down walls and on his time off he would come down to Camp Hate and spend time with me.  I conferred with Jane about moving up and back into the house with the plans of refurbishing the house and taking care of it. We agreed it would be best and she would send money when needed for any supplies while I would do the labor as much as I could and I would trade tattoo work whenever possible for extra help.

Knowing that Claire had been the saboteur,I asked her if she wanted to move on the path or stay, hoping she would decline. She did, since her and Matt had become an official thing in the house.. I let her know I was moving on without her, on to my next city. I thanked the shop for the time there and thanked Joe John for the great experience and time at his shop. I moved a week later leaving behind the lies for Claire to wallow in.      

(Looking back Jake called her the Uko Ono of that house and he wasn’t wrong.)