"Bravo!" the lone member of the audience was on his feet, filling the cavernous space with thunderous applause. "This is going to be a sell-out!"

Sal collapsed to the stage, puffing with exertion from the final song.

"Yeah!" he whooped, raising his arms towards the ceiling.

"I still hate that line about the fishes," Curtis said, emerging from the wings and pulling off his long blonde wig. "It's obvious Baitatao is just gonna eat her."

"You're a star, Curtis!" the director boomed, his expensively clothed arms open wide. "I've never seen such a realistic depiction of Amara, or any woman at that! How do you do it?"

"I shouldn't want to give away my secrets," Curtis said with a wink.

Sal shot his co-star a double thumbs up.

"We open tomorrow night!" the director addressed the cast. "Go home and get some rest. Tell the wives no – if there's any night they need to let you be, it's tonight!"

With his characteristic booming laughter bouncing from the walls, the director took his exit.

Curtis leaned against the wooden replica dock as the stagehands wheeled out other sections of the set, and refilled special effects tanks and hydraulic mechanisms. Technology had come a long way since the likes of Lizzie, but the plays were all the same in their essence. They did seem to be taking more of a morbid turn though; the Venesi crowd was becoming more and more sadistic in its tastes.

"You got a wife?" Curtis called to Sal, sweeping his mop of curls out of his eyes.

"No," Sal replied, yawning and stretching out luxuriously on the sea. "You?"

"Nah," Curtis said dismissively.

Sal grinned. "I didn't think so, you seemed too young." He fidgeted with his Ranger uniform. "I was married once."

Curtis raised an eye row. "Oh yeah?"

"I ended it when I realised she was trying to use me as a leg up into the industry. Thought she could get me to bend the rules for her."

Curtis let out a strained laugh. "Lame, huh?"

Sal shrugged, to Curtis's surprise. "I thought it was sad, actually. But we couldn't deny it, she didn't love me."

"I'm sorry," Curtis said, leaning forward to place a hand on his colleague's shoulder…

"Look, you're a cool guy, Curt. I know you won't take this the wrong way. The rules are antiquated, there isn't a day goes by when I don't think about how unfair it is."

"Me too… Something needs to change."

"But you know, a woman would be laughed off the stage before she ever had a chance to prove –" Sal broke off with an amused chuckle.

Curtis quickly removed his hand from Sal's shoulder which he realised he'd forgotten to do.

"You're looking at me like Amara," Sal said, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "But relax a little, take a break, it'll help for tomorrow. Let me get to know the real Curtis, hey?"

Curtis relaxed his face and let a big breath out. He plopped himself heavily onto the dock. "You're right. It's too easy to get lost in the story." They laughed it off.

"You know who I would love to look at me that way?" Sal lapsed back into comfortable conversation. "There's this amazing girl who used to live on my block… I never knew what she did but it must've been glamorous. Talking with her was like… I always felt so inadequate, she was smart. Not numbers smart, though I don't know about that. Smart, as in you'd still be thinking about what she said days later, wondering what she meant and how she could hold that power over you."

"Deep, huh?"

"Like the void." Sal snapped his fingers. "Her name was Rosalind."

Curtis's mouth twitched. "Was she hot?"

Sal laughed. "That is so you. Yeah… she wasn't half bad. She had awesome black hair, blacker than the rest of the world looked next to her."

"Poetic." Something had changed in Curtis. He was smiling.

Sal grinned. "I've been practising the past six months, for when I see her again. So, you know, I can say something back."

Curtis gave him a smoky look. "Pretend I'm Rosalind," he said. "You can never go wrong with a dress rehearsal."

Sal cracked up laughing. "This would be so weird if we weren't theatre guys."

"Theatre guy?" Curtis pouted and raised a brow. "Who do you think you're talking about?"

"Woah man!" Sal was up on his elbows and backed away, hands up. "That was creepy man," he continued, laughing. "She used to talk just like that –"

"C'mon guys," the stage manager tapped on the wooden dock. "You heard the man. Go home! We'll finish up here."

"Thanks Jase," Sal sighed, hauling himself up. "Rosalind…" he extended a hand to Curtis with a wink.

The stage manager looked between them with a baffled expression and shook his head.