North Star by Angeline M. Bishop

hand, then shook her head negatively to her colleague. The action was obvious. They were confirming speculations about Malcolm’s intentions. Hell , she thought, I’m wondering the answer to that myself .
    The relationship has been in a holding pattern for months after their trip to his parents’ home down south. It’d been about a year and all the talk of matrimony suddenly stopped, at his request, of course. God forbid a twenty-nine-year-old woman let her boyfriend know she wants to spend the rest of her life with him , she fumed when the elevator finally reached her stop.
    Laila squared her shoulders and strolled past the ladies as they suddenly clustered together to whisper their comments. Their hushed words didn’t reach her ears, but pain infiltrated her heart all the same.
    Caresse searched her jewelry box for the right earrings to complete her outfit, while her kitchen became a buzz of activity. Her cousin, Diane, and her oldest daughter, Nyla, happily made chocolate chip cookies as an inquisitive Messina watched her mother run around her bedroom in preparation for her dinner meeting with Graham Sheridan.
    Part of Caresse wondered why she was making such a fuss. It’s not a date , she thought as placed the sundress back on the hanger and moved toward the suits in her closet. It’s strictly business . She repeated the words in the hopes of creating a mantra that would break the eagerness coursing through her veins. The last time she ate dinner with a man she wasn’t related to was over eight months ago. And before him, nothing, unless you count her dinners with McDreamy and McStreamy of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy . At the moment, her life was a little too hectic with her class preparation for the center and the constant juggle of her daughters’ social calendar to think of finding room for a man.
    What a sad state of affairs when your pre-teen daughters have more of a social life than their parent. And to think I couldn’t wait to be an adult , she mumbled as she rummaged her jewelry box.
    “What do you think?” Caresse said as turned to Messina and held two different earrings up to her ears. “The dangling bluish ones or the button greenish ones?”
    “Hmm”, the seven-year-old pondered with a finger on her chin.
    “Now, think hard. Is Mommy’s dress more aqua blue or turquoise green?”
    “Aqua blue!”
    “I agree, so the bluish ones have won a chance to listen to my meeting tonight.” She laughed as she charged her daughter, who was sitting on the bed, to tickle her stomach.
    Giggles filled the room as the little one rolled around the bed to avoid being touch. “Stop, Mommy. I don’t want to have an accident.”
    “Okay, okay,” Caresse said as she returned to her vanity to place the earrings securely in her ears.
    Suddenly, a loud yell for cookies came from the kitchen. Caresse grabbed her Prada purse and placed her daughter on her back to carry her downstairs. The smell of cookies made her mouth water with each step toward the kitchen as Messina’s lip smacking revealed the little one eagerly awaiting a warm cookie, too.
    At the kitchen counter were apron-clad and flour-covered Diane and Nyla. They were happily consuming some of the chocolate chip cookies that decorated all of the counter space.
    “Wow! You two weren’t kidding when you said you were going to make a lot of cookies. Do I even have any brown sugar or chocolate chips left?”
    “No,” Diane said, extending a warm cookie to Caresse. “But don’t worry. I added them to your shopping list.”
    “Oh, Geez, thanks.” Caresse took a bite and lowered Messina from her back to the stool beside the counter. With a mouth full of a very delicious cookie, she motioned Diane closer. “Now, you have my new cell phone number, right?
    “Yes, unless you woke up this morning and decided to change it once again.”
    Caresse sighed. She didn’t want to change her number, but recently she began getting hang ups and unlisted numbers calling