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Spa owner David St. James began reaching for the ringing appointment line on an early December morning. Then a difficult realization set in: It didn’t matter if he picked up the phone.
“It’s useless. I don’t need to answer it. We’ve already changed the outgoing message,” said St. James, who runs Royal Thai Massage and Beauty with his wife, Chanispha, a licensed massage therapist who was born in Thailand.
The new message delivers the bad news that the spa isn’t operating because of the latest coronavirus protection order and ends with a hopeful, “We will reopen on Jan. 2 of next year.” But no one knows that for sure, and it’s looking increasingly likely that the shutdown will be extended, at least in Southern California.