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“What if she’s right, and Wellborn is weird? What if they’re abusive?”
The truth was she’d had her doubts about the Ranch. She would never admit it to Lulu, of course, but Josh had a double diagnosis: brain injury and addiction. Did he really need to be chopping wood? Knitting? Learning to bake? When his therapist first brought up the idea, Dr. Parks had called HSBC, their bank in New York, and asked them to run some numbers on the place. HSBC said Wellborn Ranch reported a profit every year of $30 million. That was a lot, and it bothered her. Hospitals didn’t make money like that, if at all.
But, at Steven’s insistence, and despite her doubts, they flew to Billings with Josh in February. A van met them at the airport and they all rode together on the four-hour drive, ascending through snow and a sugar pine woods up to the Ranch.
It looked like a ski lodge surrounded by tepees and strange round huts. Proctors, not doctors, ran the place, and all of the adults wore Timberlands and flannel, and smiled a lot. Too much smiling, Dr. Parks thought, and way too much tie-dye and L.L. Bean. She wondered why the grown-ups all looked so cheerful when the children didn’t. They all looked, what? Resigned? Subdued? Sleepy? Bitter?
“She’s probably making the whole thing up,” Steven insisted. “Lulu’s a liar.”
Takes one to know one,the doctor thought but didn’t say.
“And she’s a thief. She’s bad news.”
“A thief? Why?”
“Last year.”
“What about it?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No,” said the doctor, as she opened up Masha’s closet. She started to sift through her housekeeper’s clothes.
“Lulu and that girl, Amory Banks. Four or five kids, can’t remember—all got caught in the Greenbergs’ house. David’s parents?”
The doctor had no idea what he meant, and she was distracted by Masha’s shoes. They were all designer, expensive shoes. How did she afford them, eBay?
“During the quarantine. The Greenbergs rented a place in Hawaii. To ride out the shutdown.”
“Okay.”
“David was stupidly posting brags on his Instagram account, saying they’d be gone for months, surfing, eating coconuts—”
“Right, right—”
“So the girls broke in. Lulu and her weird gang of Valley girl Heathers broke into the house while they were away.”
“Seriously?” The doctor was shocked. They formed a new Bling Ring, but pretty. LikeMean GirlsmeetsOcean’s Eleven, Steven said, but the doctor had never seen those movies, so she had no idea what he meant. The house was decked out with cameras, and on their way out with purses and shoes, the girls were greeted first by security, and then by the police.
“Lulu’s dad paid some bond, the charges were dropped, and the girls were given community service.”
“How did I miss this?” the doctor said.
“I guess you were away. In New York,” said Steven.
What else had she missed? She could hardly believe it. Shoplifting, maybe, was one thing. That was almost a rite of passage. Pocketing a lipstick from Walgreens or bottled water from Starbucks. But breaking and entering?
“Where are you?” said Steven, “You’re going in and out.”
Dr. Parks looked around. “I’m in the pool house. Speaking of stealing, do you think Masha is honest with us? Do you think she’d ever steal from us?”
There was a silence on the line. Before the divorce, Steven had slept with Masha more than once while Dr. Parks was away in New York City, but Dr. Parks had no idea.
“Uh,” he said, thinking about it.
“Do you?” said the doctor, and moved from Masha’s bedroom closet, into the hall, and to the kitchen, but Steven suddenly said he had to take another call.
CHAPTER 9
