Hazy Day

Chapter 1
Lazy summer days on Hampton Beach were made for loops around the boardwalk, Blink’s Fried Dough, and wasting credits on arcade games. The sidewalk was as hot as the longing looks exchanged by the teens that wandered the strip looking for anything to break their boredom. Exposed fleshed drunk with sun; straws sipping sicky sweet lemonade; a sweat sheen glistening off nubile bodies in the brilliant rays; sunglasses shading eyes filled with longing intentions dreamt amid tangled sheets. Convertibles and open car sunroofs provided the soundtrack for the listless wandering of the collected youth as they completed one aimless circuit and round the turn to take another come hither lap.
See me, Harper thought, look at me, know I’m here. She didn’t care by who - just attention - a reaction.
Curiosity?
Lust?
Desire?
Disgust?
Shock?
Awe?
All of the above as long as eyes were drawn to her.
*Pop* her pink bubble gum snapped as she chewed with reckless abandon. A breeze zephyred down Ocean Boulevard and Harper raised her arms and pirouetted her pink bikinied body as her vibrant pink hair fluttered behind her.
“Watch out!” Lexi laughed – warned as Harper knocked hips with her counterpart. Alex “Lexi” Vo was Harper’s forever bestie, and practically a sister. While Harper rocked the hot pink, Lexi would bedazzle in lavenders and purples. Harper always admired her silky straight black hair. Harper’s hair was a chemical wasteland ending up in rich pink (as long as Sophia’s Dance Studio okayed it – Harper’s mother wouldn’t say a word - in between sips of her precious vodka.) If Lexi and Harper weren’t physically together then they were tethered to each other through their phones. If there was such a thing as a hive mind Harper and Lexi would be part of their own comb.
Their latest endeavor? A rock band – Harper begged and pleaded with Daddy for an electric guitar, Harper wisely always waited until Leslie, (the momster,) was three martinis deep before she started her wide-eyed manipulations. It was dance for a while, skateboarding for a hot second, fashion for a solid nine months, a weird flirtation with Krav Maga, but now Harper seemed to be honing in on sweet licks of incendiary shredding on a sick axe. Lexi? Synthesizer and deejaying of course. They were all in.
“Listen to this one.” Lexi shared her earbud with Harper. A trippy piano entered the scene, followed quickly by some indeterminate percussion. It flowed into an Afro-Caribbean beat with a duet of quirky voices.
“Oh oh, you the queen
You're the king
We got out aces out
You the queen
You're the king
We got out aces out
Roll the dice on tonight, go and roll'em out (Huh!)
Give me more than enough to go smile about (Aye, aye)
I got all I need in a world of doubt
We got our champagne dreams
In an endless drought
We are the kings and queens seeking our aces out
We got all we need, no new friends now
The song then elated into a series of La la la’s and Harper couldn’t help but to smile and skipped into a little dance shaking her legs in cutoff jeans, kicking her way too hot for the beach black combat boots into the air.
“Yo, this is a vibe!” Harper, exclaimed a little too loudly even for a wide-open public space where cars are literally shaking due to the bass being emitted out of their rear speakers. She giggled and squealed with an emotion mimicking embarrassment, but not actually giving a fuck at the same time. Harper immediately pulled out her phone and shared the song into her playlist.
“No New Friends” – LSD
Harper made a mental note of the title as Lexi had a possessive streak, not that Harper was one to talk. She noted it nonetheless.
“Lex, you think you could find out how they produced that song?”
“Natch’, simple beats. It’s Sia – nothing else to say.” Harper sometimes couldn’t fathom the electricity that pinged around in the brain of one Alex Vo.
“Okay, think we could work a guitar riff in there someplace?”
“Natch’” Lexi punctuated this affirmation with a purple bubble gum snap of her own. Lexi could see the music mathematically; it was cool to watch her break down beats like an equation. Divide, slow it down, find the rhythm, multiply the beat and work the crescendo to bring up the energy and get people moving in the crowd. A theoretical crowd – strictly theoretical at this point Harper lamented.
Harper’s love for the guitar was reckless. It was emotional, an emotional investment that even Harper was surprised by. Even though her fingers literally bleed, she wore her pink Duck tape on her digits with pride. Fuck a pedicure, these babies are tools of destruction. That’s what Leslie thought as well – this horrid guitar was ruining her peaceful chateau – Harper had forgotten to give two fucks years ago. Now that Harper had the taste of the power of the guitar she was never going to give it up.
She held music in her possession. She held the conduit to people’s souls in the palm of her two hands. Harper had been accused of manipulating people’s emotions before – what High School senior with an active dating life hasn’t? But whatever she did before playing the guitar was cavegirl shit. There were levels to eliciting emotions and bringing a guitar into the mix raised the bar to the Nth level. There is just something about a musician’s fingers dancing across the fret and picking those heavy strings and then engaging the audience with their voice that forges an empathic connection like few other interactions. Inherently Harper understood how different genres of music could boost, incite, or deaden the passions of an audience. She planned on learning every audio emo bridge.
Daddy invested in sound proofing the pool house. Black egg crates covered the walls and now Harper had an amp and a kick-ass set of headphones. Leslie and Harper came to an agreement – if Harper continued in dance, in some capacity, for Leslie to continue her social engagements with the other #dancemoms of the studio she would indulge Harper’s “little guitar hobby.” And people really wonder why girls enjoy applying the deepest blackest eye liner?
Harper didn’t care what Leslie said, when Lexi set up her synth and turn tables and Harp plugged in her amp, they sounded good – and they had only been playing for about three months, 17 days, and 5 hours (Harper barely kept track.) Imagine what they would sound like by the end of the summer and after having their own gig. Especially now that Harper was sneaking out of one night of dance to take extra guitar lessons.
“You hungry?” Lexi asked adjusting her crazy oversized sunglasses.
“Def” Harper replied absently reading a text.
“Nuggies?” Lex scrolled through Tik Tok.
“Shakes?” Harper snapped a selfie with a cutesy peace sign
“Def” Lexi punctuated with another purple gum *Pop.*
The Golden Arches it would be. Someone would get fries too.
They’d been putting in steps since Harper’s momster dropped them off at 10:30, (“Uber home girls, Mommy has a spa day planned.”) Of course, Lexi’s mom would be picking them up but Harper was happy not to have to deal with Leslie anymore today and she was feeling particularly free. Daddy’s credit card, no plans, and her best friend by her side how could Harper’s day go wrong – now the only goal was to make it interesting.