“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.”