It should have been a perfect weekend. The entrance to the spa was a white mission-style building with a wide arched doorway and the words “Natural Baths” in relief above. Beyond it was the real draw, an Olympic-size mineral pool with licks of steam slowly peeling off it. The scene was ringed with hills and palms. And as the Northern California sun dipped behind the pines, there we were: two women sitting on parallel beds in one of the picture-perfect cottages on the property. We were each wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe. Ann was on the phone ordering a pizza and a Caesar salad, and Aminatou was deciding what movie to watch. The only thing on the schedule for the next 48 hours was a series of side-by-side spa treatments—with plenty of time for floating in the pool.

The emails we sent in advance of the trip were all exclamation points and promises. “Totes getting a mud bath but feeling conflicted about body scrub. Maybe a facial??” “Oooh, the mud bath is included!” “Y E S to free mud bath! and to this lil getaway.” Once we arrived, we texted cheerful updates to mutual friends who weren’t on the trip: “Hi from the spa in Napa!” On social media we posted cute photos of our matching animal-print shoes and beautiful scenes of the sun glinting on the surface of that 92-degrees natural hot-spring pool.

By all outward appearances, we were two healthy, wealthy women on a gorgeous getaway. This was the stuff of stereotypical “girls’ trips,” the sort of extravagant vacation we had dreamed about taking when we first met as broke 20-somethings. Years deep into our friendship, with so many of our professional aspirations starting to come to fruition and big pieces of our lives starting to snap into place, our unhurried hours at the spa should have been every bit as idyllic as the photos made it out to be.