Each yurt came equipped with a palatial outdoor shower and personal infrared sauna, which Stella explained warmed the organs and internal tissues.
“Does wonders for detoxing, lymphatic issues, and high blood pressure,” she explained. “I recommend at least twenty minutes every single morning and fifteen before you go to bed at night.”
Two handsome men in crisp white shirts and matching short shorts carried Janey’s bag into the yurt for her. “Can we unpack for you, madam?” one of them asked her. She shook her head. The idea of someone rifling through her bag, folding her bras and underwear into perfect triangles unnerved her.
She thought she’d packed light, but turns out she hadn’t needed to pack at all. The thatched bamboo wardrobe contained seven identical grey tank tops, four pairs of grey shorts, and three pairs of grey stretch pants.
Janey put her own clothes next to The Workout uniforms and laced up her bright yellow sneakers, assuming they were a violation of the retreat’s strict color therapy and deciding she’d risk it. She lathered a sweet-smelling sun cream on her shoulders and face, not bothering to rub it all the way in. The concierge, an obliging local with chocolate-brown eyes and acne-scarred cheeks, informed her there was a sandy path to the beach if she just kept walking north on the property. It felt nice to be walking on something other than pavement for a change.
She heard the yelling before she could see who was making such a scene. Thirty yards away she saw Sara Strong hanging out the second-story window of the main house screaming into a cell phone, waving a cigarette in the air. Without a stitch of makeup on, Janey could clearly see the large dark rings beneath her eyes.
“What do you mean you can’t get it through customs? It’s tea, for Christ’s sake! Tea. You’re not even going to try? Well then, don’t fucking come. It’s herbal. You know that and I know that and there’s nothing wrong with bringing it on an airplane. But whatever. If you’re going to be such a fucking baby about it then don’t bring it and don’t come at all. I’ll figure something else out.” Janey ducked behind a large bougainvillea and watched Sara hang up the phone and scream out the open window.
“Pahhhhh-hhhhh-hhhhh-hhhh!” the woman shrieked and stubbed the end of her cigarette against the windowsill before letting it drop down into a bed of oleander. Knowing she had witnessed something she wasn’t supposed to see excited her. Rather than being turned off by the outburst, she finally began to see Sara Strong as an actual human.
But why couldn’t the herbal tea go through customs?
· · ·
Janey woke early the following morning to light streaming in the windows of the yurt and a big-boned blond woman sitting cross-legged on a meditation cushion next to her bed.
“Hi! I’m Suzy!” This woman, draped in at least three layers of next season’s Isabel Marant, must be her roommate.
“Don’t get up. I was just meditating. Landed an hour ago. I took the first jet out of Teterboro…wanted to make the most of the day. You got here last night? Don’t you just love it here? Isn’t it wild? It’s so Mosquito Coast, I can’t stand it. Of course it’s probably not PC to mention mosquitoes these days…not with the Zika virus going around and all those poor tiny-headed children. We had a benefit for it a few weeks ago at the public library. So sad. I can’t even look at the pictures. What brought you here?”
Pauses didn’t exist in Suzy’s syntax.
Janey sat up and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. “Do you know Stella?”
“From Shame to Shaman. Of course I know her. Love her. I keep telling her I want to work on a documentary about her life. I used to make docs for PBS back when they had money. Now that the kids are in kindergarten I’m jumping back in. Just closed a deal with Vice to shoot north Indian transvestite rhino poachers.”
Suzy was attractive in the way that loads of money allowed a woman of a certain age (Janey guessed she was mid-fifties) to remain preserved. She’d never be thin again, if she ever had been thin in the first place, but her muscles were taut and strong. She was meaty, like a waitress in vintage German beer advertisements.
Her roommate stood and began pacing the room, clearly unable to sit still for longer than fifteen seconds. “I love Sara Strong so much. I keep telling her that I will go to any class and any retreat and anything she does anywhere in the entire world. She’s a beautiful soul and the things she does for people are just magical. I’ve lost fifty pounds. That’s fifty pounds I’ve had since my kids were born. I feel such a connection with her. It’s like we’ve been best friends for our entire lives.”
Janey wanted to mention that being best friends rarely involved paying the other best friend thousands of dollars but stopped herself when she remembered how many hundreds of thousands of her family’s money she’d invested in B in the early years. Some friendships were transactional.
“Don’t you love this yurt? So much better than actually having to visit Mongolia.” Her roommate laughed with a snort.
Suzy seemed nice enough, even if she did talk like a Moonie, but Janey needed caffeine to follow her erratic trains of thought.
“Are they serving coffee in the main house?” She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and was pleased to find a pair of grey Havaianas flip-flops waiting for her.
“Oh no, girlfriend! No coffee for the next week. That’s why I got my fix on the plane. They looked at me like I was craaaaaaazy when I ordered two triple espressos, but you do what you need to do!”
“Right. Well, maybe tea?”
Sara Strong’s fight on the phone over the herbal tea came rushing back to Janey. It still made no sense to her, and she wondered whether she should mention it to Suzy, but she felt guilty for accidentally eavesdropping on what was very clearly a private conversation.
Suzy jogged in place, jerking her knees higher toward her chest with each iteration. “Or maybe we can find a juice? Do you wanna walk over with me? Have you unpacked? I guess we didn’t need to pack much. I still like being prepared.”
“I have. I didn’t bring much.” Janey looked at two leather Louis Vuitton suitcases now sitting empty in the corner of the room. “I’m ready to go. Let’s take a wander and see who else is here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY