| abstract | - Fidel was Blanche's secret, much older boyfriend. He is the son of a once-wealthy cigar maker from Cuba. Dating Blanche even though he was in his seventies, Blanche was highly enamored with him until catching him by chance on the boardwalk making out with Sophia. He begins to date Sophia and Blanche at the same time, igniting jealousy and hatred between the two roommates, forcing Rose and Dorothy to try to maintain the unsteady peace. Eventually Blanche and Sophia both find themselves dating Fidel on the same evening, and again get into a heated argument over who should go. At that point, Dorothy receives a phone call to inform them all that Fidel was not coming as he had died. Blanche and Sophia wept for him at his wake, blaming themselves for wearing Fidel out to the point of death. However they discover that every woman there had been dating Fidel at the same time as Blanche and Sophia, many of them his age or younger, much to the shock of everybody present. The appalled procession nearly cleared out, until Sophia took the podium. Decrying Fidel as a liar and a cheater, she still took the time to mention how young and desirable he had made her feel, and commends his memory for having done the same for everybody else present.
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