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the wooded hills of the Central California Coastal Range, Spa Del Mar offers an extraordinary healing retreat away from the busyness of life and the bustle of the city. Your peaceful accommodations include freedom from ringing phones, unpleasant smog, and traffic jams. Enjoy the tranquil setting of our redwood hot tubs with soothing mineral water, and experience our therapeutic massages and state-of-the-art skin care. Retreat to our labyrinth meditation garden to allow nature’s serenity to soothe your soul.
    Translation: Spa Del Mar is in the middle of nowhere. We haven’t got any phones or televisions because we can’t afford an operator or the cable bill. When you think you’re bored out of your skull, take a dunk in our redwood hot tub with sulfur water that smells like rotten eggs, and select from two spa treatments: facial or massage. Take your pick. We make decision-making easy here at Spa Del Mar because we only offer two choices. It’s all we’re legally entitled to perform. When you’re done with that, you can fight for the single bench under the sycamore tree outside.
    Altogether, Spa Del Mar is so not state-of-the-art. But we love it.
    After a four-hour ride, we drive up to the spa’s front door in Morgan’s BMW, which is the size of a small airplane and has just as many buttons. You might think that a bellman would come running out, wearing a red suit with smart, gold buttons. But no, at Spa Del Mar you park the car and schlep your own bags up the hill to the speckled Formica front counter. Spa Del Mar runs your credit card (or in this instance, Morgan’s credit card) through that machine that still uses carbon, and we’re on our way—with a complimentary warm bottle of mineral water and a key. (Apparently, cold water can upset your digestive tract.)
    Spa Del Mar’s well-appointed balcony room (which we get every time) includes two lawn chairs and a plastic table outside, plus two queen beds decorated in a palette of seafoam and jungle green inside. Whichever one of us really needs the spa weekend gets a bed to herself. This time, that would be me. See? There are distinct advantages to being a failure and having hair that ruins your life. Naturally, since I’m not able to pay, I don’t call too many spa weekends of my own, but I knew it was bad when my straightened hair didn’t even cheer me up. This weekend was a necessity.
    It may sound like Spa Del Mar is a complete dump, but it’s not. It’s beautiful, with canopied sycamores and oaks and lush greenery surrounding—even a jacaranda tree that is bright purple when it blooms. The room is clean and neat, just nothing fancy. Plus, it has windows! Still, it is a bit shocking that Morgan is willing to come here. I think she equates it to “roughing it.” The evenings are spent enjoying fine spa cuisine by a chef from California’s wine country. Throw in plenty of giggling and those forbidden organic truffles, and how could I not love it?
    â€œAll right, Lilly. We’re here.” Morgan turns around on the stairwell and stares at me. “Are you ready to talk? We’ve given you the entire drive, and you haven’t said a word.”
    â€œYou need to talk about it before you have the first spa treatment. The release of emotion starts the detox process,” Poppy adds.
    â€œCan we get in the room first?” I say. I don’t want to let on that my contraband jug of pickles and two liters of Diet Pepsi in the bag slung over my shoulder are killing me. Then again, I don’t want to discuss my personal life on the stairwell, either.
    Poppy opens the door and kicks off her earthy Clarks clogs. She breathes in deeply and lifts her hands to the ceiling. “I love this air. We really should do this more often. Mmm. It smells like they sprayed eucalyptus oil.” She opens the sliding glass door to our balcony, sniffs the sulfur from the hot tub below, and