people who always seemed jolly, although with her recent divorce I couldn’t imagine she felt a hundred percent. The truth was, I knew very little about her. She lived in Carmel Highlands in a rather fancy house, which, she told me, would have to be sold and the money split two ways. Like me she was childless, but I had always got the impression that in her case, it was by choice. Her husband was in real estate, so must have made a lot, and I wondered why she wasn’t getting the house as part of her alimony. But she had hinted at moving abroad and starting again. I hadn’t pried, because I didn’t want to get too close. Just because we were from the same country shouldn’t be a prerequisite for being friends, so I always kept her at a distance. Strangely, as buddy-buddy as she and Juan had been in their twenties, she didn’t seem to miss him much now.
“So you’ve been busy with plans for your hotel idea, have you?” she said, after I’d pointedly ignored her comment. “How’s it all coming along?”
It wasn’t a hotel, but a retreat. After Juan died, I came up with the idea. Something to stave off the loneliness. To keep me occupied. Even though he had traveled a lot, negotiating mergers and big real estate deals all over the world—his work as one of the country’s top attorneys had been all-consuming—I didn’t experience a feeling of solitude when he was away. We’d do video calls and he was just a text or email from my fingertips. After I lost him, I thought by hosting a retreat at Cliffside it would busy me, since I’d given up my job at Juan’s firm when we’d moved here to California from New York. Perhaps it would make me feel better about not having children, too—the company, that feeling of human connection.
Cliffside wouldn’t host just any old retreat. I’d invite interesting people to study yoga, eat healthy food, and take painting or poetry classes, all under one roof, with the backdrop of the ocean serving as inspiration. I had thought of adding an extension to the house in the same style. All the rooms would stay unique. None of that generic stuff you find in faceless, expensive hotels. Mine would be all bespoke furniture and sumptuous bed linen from France. Most of the stuff already in the house had been included in the sale, but I wanted to put my stamp on the place. I’d buy some of those double-thick bath towels that cost an arm and a leg.
I thought of that expression often, “Costs an arm and a leg.” Juan had told me that in Spanish they say, “Costs a kidney,” not an arm and a leg. Nice expression, either way, for describing something expensive.
If only he’d known.
“It’s not going to be a hotel, exactly,” I explained to Pippa. “More like a retreat. I’ve applied for the permits—there’s all the renovation work to think about, adding bathrooms and stuff. But I’m, you know, reluctant to change things. A part of me wants to keep everything exactly as it is.”
I didn’t want to go into detail. Especially as I now questioned the whole thing anyway. Even if the guests were scintillating and I could cherry-pick the clients, I was wary of sharing my house with people who might not appreciate its uniqueness. Cliffside was too close to my heart.
“You should sell, darling,” Pippa said. “I mean, that house must be worth a fortune. You’d never have to do a day’s work in your life again. You could retire young. Not to mention that massive life insurance payout you got and the inheritance from Juan.”
I flinched at the mention of the life insurance money. “I’m only thirty-seven! I like working, I like being busy. I’ve got a part-time job, actually, just three days a week, helping an elderly gentleman called Mr. Donner sort out his estate. He told me he doesn’t want his assets gobbled up by Uncle Sam so needs a lawyer to put everything in order, in case he ‘gets run over by a bus,’ he says.”
Pippa cocked her head. “Good for you getting a new job. Lucky that Juan had sorted his will out before he died, don’t you think?”
Silence. I regretted bringing the subject of wills up.
But Pippa steered the conversation back to Juan again. “It’s just that you could start afresh, darling, and do something completely new. Not have him haunting