January 9, 2020 Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, Jan. 9, and I’m writing from Los Angeles. We appear to have just retreated from the brink of all-out war with Iran, commercial airlines have rerouted flights crossing the Middle East to avoid potential dangers amid the tensions, and Australia is still burning. But let’s take a minute to discuss the question that’s really on everyone’s minds: Might Meghan Markle move back to her hometown? On Wednesday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they would “step back” from their role as senior members of the royal family and “work to become financially independent.” The couple’s relinquishment of royal duties was made even more dramatic by Buckingham Palace’s response — a brusque, two-sentence statement that made it seem like the rest of the monarchy may have been blindsided by Harry and Meghan’s announcement. [Read the story: “Harry and Meghan plan to step back from duties. Royal family says it is ‘hurt’” in the Los Angeles Times] The news was a palace intrigue plot twist rivaled perhaps only by former King Edward VIII’s 1939 decision to abdicate his throne and marry Wallis Simpson — another American divorcée cast as a kind of monarchy-edition Yoko Ono. Markle had previously struggled through relentless public scrutiny and racist coverage in the U.K. press and spoke candidly in October about the challenges she’d faced since the 2018 royal wedding. [See also: “Column: ‘The Crown’ finally has its happy ending — Harry and Meghan go rogue” in the Los Angeles Times] Why L.A.? Markle and Harry said they now plan to “balance” their time between the U.K. and “North America.” Some of the royal-watcher rumor mill seems to be putting its money on Canada, where Markle lived for several years filming “Suits,” but Los Angeles could certainly also be in the cards. Markle, a self-described California girl, was born in L.A. and attended Los Feliz’s Immaculate Heart High School. Her mother, Doria Ragland, still lives in the View Park-Windsor Hills neighborhood. More importantly, Markle once described herself on her former lifestyle blog the Tig as someone who “lives by the ethos that most things can be cured with either yoga, the beach, or a few avocados,” which sounds like a hard point in the West Coast column. She has also previously opined on Canadian winters, and the prospect of a voluntary January there could be less than enticing. [Another column worth reading: “Renounce your titles, you cowards” in the Los Angeles Times] That pesky matter of “financial independence” Now that they’re off the royal dole, Markle and Prince Harry will need to contend with the plebeian indignity of a day job. Unfortunately “Suits,” the USA legal drama where Markle first became semi-famous playing paralegal Rachel Zane, concluded its nine-season run last September. Over at Bloomberg, Lucas Shaw suggested the lucrative public-speaking circuit could be a possibility for a pair of intrepid royals seeking financial independence. A speaking agency co-founder Shaw spoke with estimated that the couple could each get more than $100,000 per appearance, with Harry potentially nearing President Obama’s roughly $500,000 fee. They could also easily take another Obama route and set up podcast and film production deals. Maybe it’s only a matter of time before someone spots them in the Netflix lobby.