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and I don't really feel like being alone.”
    “Sounds like fun,” I said. I glance back over at the woman in black. She was staring again. “Lark? Do you see that lady over there by the stairs? She keeps looking at us.”
    Lark turned all the way around in her chair. I rolled my eyes.
    “You don't have to be so obvious about it.”
    She giggled, then seemed to freeze. She turned back around abruptly and took a long sip of her coke.
    “Do you know her?” I asked.
    “Nope,” she said. She and Brooke shared a look. I didn't believe her for a second.
    The four of us spent another hour or two shopping, then we split up. Brooke had plans for a movie with Foster, Allison was expected to be home for dinner with her parents, and Lark and I went to her house. When we got there, I was amazed at the level of security around their yard. Video surveillance. A gated front drive with a guard.
    “Whoa. What's up with all the Fort Knox security?”
    She looked a little embarrassed and I wondered if I'd said something wrong. “You know, with my mom being Mayor and all, sometimes we get threats.”
    I nodded as if that made complete sense, but to tell the truth, it didn't make any sense to me at all. It wasn't like we were in Washington DC or New York or anywhere. We were in a small town with a population of less than ten thousand. Was being the mayor in a town like this really all that dangerous? I thought of the creepy woman who'd been staring at us in the mall and shivered.
    Inside, the house was like a palace. Marble floors. A huge winding white staircase. Sparkling chandelier. It was unreal. The house didn't look like the typical southern Mayor's house, that's for sure. It was far from what I was expecting.
    “Wow, did your parents design this place?”
    “My dad's an architect,” she said. “And my mom went to school for interior design up in Atlanta. That's where they met.”
    “This place is beautiful.”
    “You think?” She looked around, a bored look on her face. “It always seems so out of place to me. Like it doesn't fit in a town like this with all these old southern houses.”
    I didn't tell her that was exactly what I'd just been thinking. “But it's still gorgeous.”
    She laughed. “Thanks. Come on, I'll show you my room.”
    As we started up the stairs, an older black woman walked into the hallway and said hello to Lark. “You want something to eat? I've got some cookies in the kitchen. Fresh baked if you want any.”'
    “No thanks,” Lark said. “We might come down later. This is Harper, by the way.”
    “Hi Miss Harper. Nice to meet you.”
    “Nice to meet you too.” I had never seen so many people working to make one house run smoothly. A security guards. A cook. I caught a glimpse of a woman in a maid's uniform dusting in the living room when we first walked in. How many people did the Chen's employ anyway? Half a dozen? More? It blew my mind a little.
    Lark grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs. The carpet up here was a plush off-white carpet that I sank into with each step. Somewhere in the middle of the hallway, Lark pushed open a dark mahogany door.
    “Here we are,” she said. “My little piece of heaven.”
    As I walked into the room, I felt a slight shock go through my system. After all of the white and cream and gold tones in the main areas of the house, Lark's bright pink walls and dark wood furniture looked completely out of place.
    “Wow, it's crazy bright and cheerful in here.”
    “Um, I'll take that as a compliment,” she said, plopping down on her bed. The Queen size bed was covered with a fluffy white comforter that was decorated with violet, green and pink polka dots.
    “I meant it as one,” I said. “It's so different from the rest of the house.”
    “Yeah, Mom and I have very different tastes. Plus, I like to redecorate a lot.”
    Must be nice. I had never once been able to decorate my own room or even pick out my own paint color. “Do you paint it