“Yoo-hoo, everyone! I’m baaack!” Claudia Connors Ledeaux burst into the room, looking larger than life in a black leather mini, matching waist-length jacket, four-inch stilettos, and flaming red hair.
The Bunco Babes and I were momentarily rendered speechless. No mean task, let me tell you. The Babes like to talk even more than we like to play bunco, our favorite dice game. We excel at both.
Tonight we were gathered at Pam Warner’s for our bimonthly get-together. Granted, some may think bunco a silly, mindless game, but it’s right up our alley. No skill, no finesse, no strategy. Dice just make it look serious. Shake, rattle, and toss. No previous experience required. The game couldn’t be simpler.
“Claudia, honey, welcome home,” I told her as my addled brain began to function again. I jumped from the sofa and ran to give her a hug. “We missed you.”
“Kate McCall!” Claudia exclaimed, returning my hug. “Missed you, too.”
Claudia is the twelfth member of our little band of bunco players. Several months back, she ran off with a man she met on the Internet. But she couldn’t get away from the Babes. We pride ourselves on being well informed. If cell phones were an Olympic event, we’d be medalists. According to all accounts, this guy, Lance Ledeaux, was unemployed, light on money, and heavy on charm. When he and Claudia first hooked up, he’d been residing in Atlanta, a mere one hundred fifty miles to the west as the crow flies. The pair took off in a rented RV ostensibly to visit the Grand Canyon. Somewhere along the way, their plans took a detour. The pair got hitched in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator in a little chapel off the Strip. Vegas, I heard, was the closest they ever got to a natural wonder. To each his own, I suppose. The lovebirds have just returned to take up residence here in Serenity Cove Estates, a retirement community for “active” adults.
I stepped aside to let the others have a turn. I used the opportunity to study Claudia more closely. There were other changes besides the hair color. Her style of dress had undergone a transformation as well. Instead of the usual trendy but classy fashion she had favored in the past, she now opted for flamboyant bordering on flashy. And flashy, as we all know, rhymes with trashy. Of course, bless her heart, I’d never say anything to hurt her feelings.
“Your hair…,” squeaked Polly, our septuagenarian. “It’s so…”
“Red,” Claudia supplied with a grin. “Like it?”
“Yeah, red. That’s the word I was looking for.” Polly turned to Gloria, her daughter, and asked, “Do you think I’d look hot with red hair?”
“Mother, really,” Gloria said with a weary shake of her salt-and-pepper bob that set her hoop earrings swaying. “Isn’t it enough to be blond at your age?”
Polly fluffed her curls. “Can’t blame a gal for wanting to maintain a youthful image. Maybe I need a new man in my life.”
Connie Sue, the Babes’ perennial Southern belle and former Miss Peach Princess, peered back toward the foyer. “Speakin’ of men, where’s that bridegroom of yours, honey chile? We’re all just dyin’ to meet the man who swept you off your feet.”
Claudia shrugged out of her leather jacket and tossed it over the back of a nearby chair, revealing a shape-hugging emerald green sweater that showed considerable cleavage. “Lance is dying to meet all of you, too. He’ll be along later.”
“What made you decide to return home this soon?” I asked.
Diane, a fortysomething brunette and the local librarian, helped herself to a small handful of cashews from a dish on the coffee table. “Last I heard, you were planning to stay in Vegas until spring.”
“What can I say?” Claudia shrugged diffidently. “Plans changed.”
Bunco temporarily forgotten, Pam patted the sofa cushion next to her. “Sit down. Tell us all about this new husband of yours.”
Claudia didn’t need a second invitation. “Better yet, I’ll show you.” She plunked herself down next to Pam while the rest of us crowded around, eager to get the skinny. After giving her mini a tug or two to keep it from riding up her thighs, she dug through a handbag large enough to be considered carry-on luggage. “Here’s my honey,” she said, extracting a five-by-seven-inch glossy in a gold-embossed leather folder.
Worming my way to a better vantage spot, I craned my neck for a peek. It wasn’t a simple snapshot, but rather a professionally posed photo-the sort I’d guess that went into the portfolio of an actor or model. Not that I’m an expert, mind you, but if I were an actor or model, it’s the kind of photo I’d stick into my portfolio. Personally, I like to keep things simple when it comes to pictures of loved ones. I thank the good Lord on a regular basis for the invention of the digital camera. No more headless bodies of friends and relatives for me. No, sirree. Not since the kids gave me one of those cute little ones hardly bigger than a credit card on my last birthday.
“He’s certainly handsome,” Pam murmured before passing the photo to Rita.
Rita, big and buxom, fanned her face with her hand. “He’s gorgeous. I feel a power surge coming on.”
A bevy of oohs and aahs and isn’t he handsomes followed the picture from one set of hands to another. Claudia beamed, basking in Lance’s reflected glory. “He’s something, all right. My own personal hunka-hunka burnin’ love.”
“Not bad for an older guy,” Megan Warner concurred.
“Watch your tongue, child.” Claudia gave Megan’s arm a playful swat. “Didn’t your mama teach you to respect your elders?”
Pam rushed to her daughter’s defense. “When you’re only twenty, Claudia, even Justin Timberlake is getting a little long in the tooth.”
Perky, blond, blue-eyed Megan happens to be the darling of the Warner family. She’s currently taking online classes and working part-time as a receptionist for the new dentist in town while trying to decide what to do with the rest of her life.
Finally it was my turn to worship at the Altar of Lance. “You gals are right. Lance Ledeaux is one hot dude.” That is if one’s taste ran to the superficial. Not mine. Personally, I’ll take Bill Lewis, my handyman charmer in a tool belt, any day of the week over movie-star handsome. I passed the glossy to Janine, the Babes’ very own Jamie Lee Curtis look-alike with her slender build and cap of short-cropped silver hair. A registered nurse, Janine is our go-to person for all things medical.
Janine’s brows puckered in a frown. “His face looks familiar. I swear I’ve seen him before, but I can’t place him.”
Tara, the other youngster of the group at thirty-one, scooted closer for another look. Tara is Rita’s daughter-in-law. She’s staying with her in-laws while her husband, Mark, is deployed to Iraq. “Now that you mention it, he does look familiar.”
“Of course he does, sweetie,” Claudia cooed. “He’s an actor. A well-known actor, I might add.”
“An actor?” we exclaimed in perfect eleven-part harmony.
“That’s right. Did I forget to mention I married an actor?”
Claudia’s expression was guileless as a cherub’s. But I wasn’t buying the innocent act. She had deliberately withheld this little tidbit, going for shock value instead. And judging from the awed looks on our faces, her ploy had worked.
“Lance has appeared in dozens of TV shows and had bit parts in a score of movies. He’s what they call a ‘character actor.’ The play he was in in Atlanta had just ended its run when we happened to meet.”
“Let me see.” Polly snatched the picture from Janine and, bringing it closer to her nose, squinted at it. “Yeah, sure, now I recognize him. Didn’t he do one of those commercials for men who can’t get it up?”
Claudia’s face reddened as she retrieved the photo and stuffed it back into her handbag.
“You know the kind I mean,” Polly continued, unfazed. “In the commercial, the guy takes a pill of some sort. Next thing you know, he’s leading a woman off to the bedroom.”
“Lance has done all sorts of work,” Claudia replied stiffly. “He’s quite talented but never got his big break. He plans to drop by after bunco. He’s got a proposition for you…” She paused for effect, then smiled a cat-with-a-canary smile before continuing. “It’s a very important proposition.”
“One more question,” Polly chirped. “Lance Ledeaux? That his real name?”
I poured Claudia a glass of wine. She looked like she needed one.