9. Stacy: To Have and Have Not at The Compleat Angler Hotel

Stacy ran an eye through the one sheet folded over that served as the program for the play. The playwright’s name was listed as Kenneth Decker.

Well, Ken, she thought. Impress me.

As the production of the play, To Have and Have Not at the Compleat Angler Hotel, unfolded, Stacy found herself growing more and more depressed. Not because the play was bad, but because it was good, in ways she hadn’t expected. It dealt with the trials and tribulations of the creative act – Hemingway’s struggle to write a novel that he didn’t want to write, his attempts to write one that he did want to write but couldn’t because of his inability to find the right words, all set against a background of sunshine, beaches, and deep sea fishing.

She found her own writing struggles mirrored in the actions of the Hemingway character….

“It resonated with me,” she told Decker after the performance, as some of the audience members remained behind to mingle with the actors. True to form, most of them clustered around the Hemingway character, while she had been the only one to seek out the playwright – who had put the words in the actor’s mouth, after all.

“You’re a playwright, too?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ve got plots and even scenes written for a half a dozen plays, but I’ve never had the stick-to-it-tiveness to actually sit down and get one finished. I start on one…it goes great guns…then I run out of steam and start on another…then I go off playwriting for a while and work on a short story…never finishing anything.”

“Sounds like you have a fear of rejection.” Ken said. “If you never finish anything, you never have to send it off to an editor or agent, who can never read it, and can therefore never tell you it isn’t any good.”

“Yeah,” said Stacy sadly. She’d always thought she was just a perfectionist who wanted everything to be perfect and knew that her skills were such that she couldn’t achieve that perfection…but maybe subconsciously, she was just telling herself that, because she didn’t want to face the possibility of her work being rejected.

Stacy looked up and caught sight of her parents and Chelsea, standing at the door, ready to leave.

“I’ve got to go,” she told Ken, hurriedly. “I’d love to continue talking to you about your play…”

He dug into his costume, and pulled out a business card.

“Call me anytime,” he said. He looked deeply into her eyes. “Really.”

She smiled at him, pocketed the card, and hurried after her parents.