Page 1 of Base Block

Chapter 1

Swirls of purple and blue spun around the ceiling, chasing each other and then disappearing. I stared, transfixed. How did they do that? Magic?

“Champagne,” someone muttered, and I suddenly realized that I held a glass. Was that the answer? Did champagne make the colors?

“Roxy, sit,” someone else told me. The voice sounded exasperated and a hand pushed my shoulder, making me plop down hard on the banquette. That glass flew out of my hand when my butt landed on the cushion and I was disappointed, because I’d been really thirsty. I still was, but when I talked to the people around me, asking for their assistance, they couldn’t seem to hear my words. What was happening?

Since the world might have been dissolving into spinning lights and because now I was so confused, I decided to close my eyes and I remained seated for what seemed like a few hours. We didn’t usually stay in a club for so long, though, so maybe I wasn’t keeping track of time very well. It could have been the next day (but maybe it was only a few minutes later) that I blinked and looked around. We were still here and I was still thirsty. I lifted a glass from the table in front of the banquette and swallowed what was in it, and that liquid did a lot to make me feel less parched. I talked about the terrible heat to someone seated next to me, a man I thought I knew, but he acted like he couldn’t understand what I was saying.

After that, he got up and so did everyone else. We went to dance and I did my part with Damian, well enough that he didn’t get annoyed. When he moved away, one of his bodyguards threw a stranger off me. That guy had been grabbing and grinding, which was annoying. I didn’t owe him anything.

“Thanks,” I told Matheus. I meant to say that but it was loud in here, and with all those spinning lights? Everything was so nutso, I wasn’t sure if I’d even spoken. I checked to make sure my mouth was still there and it was, but that made me realize that my lipstick was not. If we had really been here for hours or days (which I still wasn’t sure about), then I should have checked my makeup a while ago.

“Are you going to the bathroom?” Millie asked and I realized that she had been the one who had shoved me earlier and made me sit on the banquette. I’d figured it out because she had the same voice now as she’d had before. I would have been even more confused if she’d swapped that out, so thank goodness she had kept the same whine and the same exasperation.

“Roxy! Are you going to the bathroom?”

I was heading that way, I believed. “Yes,” I told her. But again, I wasn’t sure if my mouth was there…no, it definitely was. It needed lipstick. “Thanks for pushing me.”

“What?” She linked her arm through mine and we walked together. “You’re so out of it,” she told me. “What did you take?”

But one thing I wasn’t confused about was the fact you were never, ever supposed to admit to stuff. “Nothing,” I answered. My own voice was definitely working because she heard me. She shook her head.

“You’re a liar.”

That was too bad, wasn’t it? It almost made me feel like crying but I made myself look calm and undisturbed, a perfect mask. We had gone into the bathroom and it was so packed with other girls that it was hard to get near the mirror, but Millie was tougher than I was. She elbowed a path through the crowd and shoved a woman out of the way so that we could see our reflections in the glass.

I still couldn’t get a good look at myself because of the purple lights flashing in my eyes. My hand was unsteady as I forced open my purse and retrieved a tube of lipstick. She watched as I finally got some on my mouth and then applied gloss over that.

“A mess,” I heard her say. “I don’t know how you still look so good.” She opened her own bag and took out a coke bullet for a quick hit—but just as she brought it up to her nose, the girl came back, the one Millie had pushed out of our way. And that girl had brought a friend. Suddenly, there was a fracas in front of the sinks and that was something else that I knew for sure: if there was a fight, you needed to get yourself clear of it. I did, retreating into a stall as women screamed and their feet clicked quickly away as they escaped. I stood on the toilet seat, clutching the top of the partition so that I wouldn’t fall into the water.

It didn’t take too long before the room filled up with different people, probably Damian’s bodyguards and bouncers employed by this club. I couldn’t see them but I heard their voices ordering everyone out. There was more screeching and then quiet—the fight was over.

I carefully climbed down and opened the stall door. Millie was gone and so was the girl who had attacked her. In fact, besides me, the bathroom was empty. I could hear music outside but just faintly, and the blue and purple swirls were dimming, too. It was all very pleasant.

Just off this area with the toilets and mirrors, there was a little lounge and I bet it was a space to take care of kids. Wasn’t that nice? You could hide away from the chaos of the club, to relax and hold them. I settled in one of the chairs, tucked in around the corner and out of sight, and thought about coming here with a baby. “Drink this,” I would say, offering a bottle. “We’ll go home soon, don’t worry.” I leaned back and closed my eyes, happy.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Millie told me. She was poking me in the shoulder, hard.

“Stop,” I told her. “Stop, Millie!”

But she didn’t, and I got a big surprise when I opened my eyes and found that this was not Millie at all. A stranger stared down at me and poked again. “Get up. Let’s go,” she repeated.

The lights were a lot brighter than before and I blinked in the glare. I rubbed my eyes, too, before staring at my empty arms. Had I been holding a baby? Had someone brought a baby to a club?

“Hey! You gotta go,” the woman demanded.

“Ok, ok,” I answered. I still wasn’t quite sure what was happening but after a moment, I stood. My mouth felt dry, like I’d been chewing on sand and gravel. I took a few steps, and then I turned around.

“Where’s my purse?”

She squinted at me. “What?”

My voice had sounded gravelly, too, rough but also weak. “My purse,” I said, trying to speak clearly. We both looked at the chair where I’d been sitting, but my bag wasn’t there. Then we looked around the rest of the bathroom and she walked me into the main area of the club. The music was off and the overhead lights dazzled.

“Jeff, did we pick up any purses?” she asked someone. They both looked around a little and so did I, but it was hard to remember where I’d been sitting. I thought about it…we’d been in the VIP, and Millie had pushed me onto that banquette. But it was empty, both of Damian and his guests and of any sign of my bag.

“We don’t have it,” the woman told me. “You gotta go.” As she spoke, she was bumping me with her shoulder, propelling me forward, and I stumbled a little.