All right, Andrea, here goes.
All participants are currently dead, except Fidel, of course.
Beverly was my stepmother Betsy's best friend from college and they remained friends for the rest of their lives. Beverly became a reporter and, in the brief period between the successful conclusion of the Cuban Revolution and the diplomatic break with the US, got an assignment to go to Cuba and interview Castro. (I'm not sure this is relevant to her getting this assignment, but Beverly, my family, and Castro all lived in the west 80s of Manhattan - Castro once attended Columbia University.)
Before Beverly left for Cuba, Betsy demanded, "If you get close to that man, you have to tell me how the beard feels." Some nights later, Betsy was awakened by the phone. A voice said, "It tickles." It was Beverly, calling from Cuba with deep background that never made it to print.
That much of the story I knew in my teens, when I lived with Dad and Betsy.
As time went on, Beverly developed anorexia. The last time I saw her, her beauty was long gone and she looked like a skeleton, unfortunately.
Dad and Betsy moved to Tucson and Beverly planned to join them, selling her condo in Manhattan and buying a beautiful one in Tucson. Unfortunately, she died before she could move there. In her will, she left the Tucson property to her autistic son to rent as part of his support, with the proviso that my parents could live there rent free as long as they wished. This generosity greatly improved the quality of my parents' lives in their last years.
Dad and Betsy's son Peter, his wife and I visited them in Tucson one Christmas. My stepmother, suffering from emphysema, was out on the back porch, several feet away behind a screen door, smoking. Peter and his wife and I were in the kitchen when he reminded me of the Fidel story. But he added more.
"Yeah," he said, "but did you know Fidel took Beverly on a 10 day vacation to Venezuela?"
"You're kidding."
"No, it happened."
I thought this was one of the best things I ever heard. I whooped and hollered, "Beverly bubbles Fidel! Beverly bubbles Fidel!"
In comes Betsy, defending her dead friend, eyes googling, smoke oozing from her nostrils, total dragon lady. "That's not true! That's not true!"
But later Pete and I agreed that he didn't take the beautiful blonde gringa away just so she could ask him more questions about living rough in the Sierra Madre.
That's the story. You, dear, will make up your mind whether it's adequate evidence to conclude Beverly and Fidel were lovers or not.
