Goodbye Freddy
by Elizabeth Diggs

THE STORY: On the occasion of Freddy's funeral and at his behest, six of his friends gather at the home of Hank and Kate in Kansas City, where five of them grew up.

Hank and Kate were childhood sweethearts whose apparently idyllic relationship has proceeded uninterrupted through the years.

Andy and Nessa were childhood sweethearts also, but are now divorced and living in New York.

He's a successful advertising executive; she's the author of a bestselling roman à clef based on her friends' lives.

Paul is the new Undersecretary for Eastern Affairs in Washington, and his wife, Alice, the only one who has not known the others since grammar school, is a housewife obsessed with the many infidelities she imagines Paul has committed.

Hovering over them all is the spirit of Freddy, the only admitted homosexual in the group.

As the liquor flows and memories (and recriminations) become more telling, Hank, in an emotional outburst, admits that he had been having an affair with Freddy for years prior to his death.

Kate is overwhelmed by this revelation, the friends take sides and, as the night winds down into morning, facades are stripped away as no-holds-barred truth-telling replaces the party atmosphere with which the evening began.

In the end Hank and Kate agree to strive for a more honest relationship, and the others, each in his or her own way affected by the absent Freddy, resolve to use the legacy of directness and honesty which he left them to set their own lives on firmer paths.