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kitchen staff. Other members of Cosmic Harmony came in at varying times, depending on who was available and what skills were needed. This morning Cleo recognized Nebula and Constellation hard at work. One was preparing muesli, and the other was slicing sourdough whole wheat bread. The women at Cosmic Harmony generally adopted new names when they came to the Retreat. Some stayed for a few days, weeks, or months. Others, like Andromeda and Daystar, were permanent residents.
    All of the women at work this morning had the sleeves of their long, jewel-colored gowns secured above their elbows. Their bright head scarves and strange bronze and silver necklaces added an exotic touch to the kitchen.
    The latest edition of the guidebooks had recently begun citing the cuisine at the Robbins' Nest Inn as one of the best reasons to visit the Washington coast in winter or any other time of the year.
    For Cleo, the women from Cosmic Harmony provided something much more important than a money-making restaurant; they provided friendship and a place to go when she needed peace and serenity. She often went to the Cosmic Harmony meditation center after one of the recurring nightmares that plagued her from time to time.
    The Retreat, situated on a magnificent stretch of land overlooking the ocean, had once been an exclusive golf resort. The resort had failed years earlier and had slowly rotted into the ground.
    Five years ago Andromeda and Daystar had conceived the notion of turning the abandoned site into a commune for women. Initially they had leased the grounds and buildings. But three years ago, together with Cleo's assistance, they had pooled their limited resources and purchased the old resort at a foreclosure sale.
    Andromeda and Daystar, who formed the core of Cosmic Harmony, had not always been involved in metaphysics and philosophies of self-realization. They had, in fact, started out as members of a Seattle bridge club that had met every Tuesday for years. As time went past, each had found herself on her own due to divorce. The bridge club had been the only thing that had remained stable in their lives.
    Andromeda's name in her former life had been Mrs. Hamilton R. Galsworthy III. She had helped create Cosmic Harmony six months after her husband, a doctor who was Board Certified in Gynecology, had run off with his aerobics instructor. Dr. Galsworthy had had an extremely capable lawyer who had managed to ensure that Andromeda did not get more than a token amount in the divorce settlement.
    Andromeda had explained to Cleo that she bore no ill will toward her ex-husband, who wound up being divorced by the aerobics instructor within a year. “It was really very sad, dear,” Andromeda had once explained. “The poor man was sixty at the time, and they say she had him doing an hour of high-impact aerobics twice a day. With ankle weights, no less. He hasn't been the same since, I'm told. One assumes his karma finally caught up with him.”
    But there was no going back for Andromeda, not even when Hamilton R. Galsworthy III, M.D., showed up at her door, a broken man, offering to come home. Andromeda had already launched herself on a new path of cosmic enlightenment. In addition, she and her bridge partner, also recently divorced, had discovered that their friendship for each other was a stronger, more enduring bond than the relationship either had had with her ex-husband.
    Andromeda sipped a cup of herbal tea in a slow, ceremonial manner. “I wanted to speak to you about one of our new guests,” she said to Cleo. She was nearly sixty, a cheerful elf of a woman with a halo of curly gray hair and bright, inquiring eyes. When she moved, the small bells attached to the hem of her gown tinkled merrily.
    Lately, every move Andromeda made had an air of carefully cultivated grace and ritual about it. She was currently studying the traditional Japanese tea ceremony and its implications for daily living. It was the latest in a never-ending series of