Something pretty wholesome happened a day or two later. It was also when I finally learned the beach prince's name.
I was fishing in my usual spot, alone at the time. I was getting a pretty good haul; I was starting to think I'd have to wrap it up earlier than usual for lack of storage for the fish!
In fact, just as I had decided the next cast was going to be the last, the beach prince started playing his piano in his cabin.
I let out a pleased "Oh!" in reaction. Because I fished out here so often, this wasn't the rarest occurrence… but it certainly wasn't common at all, either. It happened maybe once a season; the piano's music would echo off the waves and make my fishing like something out of a movie.
A few measures in, though, my brain insisted that I listen closely to what was being played this time. As if… I knew it from somewhere.
Ten or so measures in now, I knew I knew this song from somewhere. All I could remember, though, was that it was an oldie. As in way-before-my-time oldie.
And then, a familiar set of chords. My nerves came alive with excitement, and I drew in an audible gasp of joy, when I knew exactly what this song was, and that it was one I had been raised on. It was by the very artist I credited with helping me find my singing voice in the first place.
I was alone. Nobody was coming from the city, nobody was on the pier… The stage was set. Something, though I didn't know what, had come full-circle.
As soon as it was right, I began to sing. My problems faded away. This was so perfect.
About halfway through the song, an unfamiliar sound startled me and made me go quiet. Someone else was singing along… and he was really quite good.
Then, the door of Willy's shop opened, revealing that it was Willy himself doing the singing.
Dumbfounded, I listened to him for a couple more seconds. Then, he saw me and did a motion with his hands that basically meant "Come on, keep going!"
And so, as Willy sat down and started fishing himself, he and I sang through the song that the beach prince played from within his palace. He and I were an octave apart, but aside from that, sang the same notes.
By the end, it felt like he, I, and the beach prince had been drinking or something and were singing an old sea shanty together. It took me away from everything else. My day… no, my week, if not my season… was made.
When the song ended, Willy said "I've never heard an angler with a voice like yours, lass."
"Aw, come on," I blushed. "You were fantastic yourself."
A door from behind, most likely over by the beach prince's cabin, opened and closed.
"I also was surprised to see a young 'un know that song so well," said Willy.
"Ah, well, I was raised on the guy's music," I answered. "I don't regret it."
"It warms my heart to hear that," said Willy.
A pause, in which something tugged on my line.
"Heh, looks like you've got something tastier than I do," Willy laughed, before getting a bite on his own line. "It's refreshing to see a young person get so into the art o' fishing. I wish more folk like you would give it a shot."
"I'm confident that if they gave it a shot, they'd love it as much as I do," I said, reeling in a pufferfish.
Just as I unhooked it and tried to figure out how to fit it with the others in its puffed-up state, a completely new voice boomed from behind me.
"Your voices, working in tandem, are absolutely stupendous!" it praised, deep and loud.
I looked up, getting the closest look at the beach prince I'd gotten yet.
"Ah, shucks, Elliott," said Willy. "It's your work with the ivories that's so beautiful."
"Why, thank you," said who I now knew to be Elliott, blushing a bit. He then centered his sights on me. "You're the farmer that moved in about a year ago, correct? R-Rachael, is it?"
"That's me," I smiled, shifting my pole to my left hand and extending my right. "You must be Elliott. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Elliott took my hand and shook it, as one does.
"It's an honor to meet you as well," he said as he did so. As he let go, he said "I would love to hear both of your beautiful voices more often."
"Then you'll have to play your piano more often!" said Willy with a smile that almost made his eyes close.
I was going to miss calling this guy "beach prince" in my mind… but "Elliott" suited him pretty well, too.
Author's note: Fun fact: I ended up looking up the meaning for the term "headass" in the process of writing this chapter, and realized I'd been using it wrong for a while, just in general. So… oops.