(3 of 10)
Genelle walks over to find Rosa Gonzalez, her closest colleague. She and Rosa have never socialized outside work--oh, they mean to, it just has never happened--but they have spent many a lunch hour together talking about their guys and the weekends they can't wait for. Now Rosa is on the phone, and Genelle breaks in: "We have to leave." Rosa nods. Genelle goes to get her bag and runs into one of her supervisors, Joe Roque. "Get your stuff now, and let's get out of here," he says, turning to gather his belongings. "One second," says Rosa, who has appeared at Genelle's side. "I want to call my sister." Co-workers are saying that if they will be gone the rest of the day, they need to let relatives know. That makes sense to Genelle. "O.K., I'll call Roger," she says. When Joe comes back, Genelle is gone; he assumes she has left, and now he starts down the stairs without her.
Like many people who come to life within the anonymity and cacophony of a nightclub, Genelle is actually shy by nature, a virtual Trappist around strangers. Her first conversational gambit is most often a big, gap-toothed grin. It was that way when she was a girl too. Judy, as she was called, was the youngest girl of 13 children, three of whom died as babies. Her father drove trucks for the Trinidad Ministry of Works and Transport; her mother was usually pregnant.
Genelle's father was strict--she had to be home at 4 p.m., an hour after school let out--and as a teen she chafed at his rules. By 18, she had a job at the big Holiday Inn in Port of Spain, the capital. She had also met Elvis Yip Ying, an older guy of Spanish and Chinese ancestry who had light skin and a steady demeanor. "I wanted independence," Genelle says. "[It] was not love at first sight, like Roger. It was like, you're young, and you just want to get out on your own, have a kid, get on with life." She had Kimberly, her only child so far, when she was 18. "But I wasn't in love with Elvis," she says, and they eventually broke up.
Genelle moved to New York City in 1998; she left Kimberly in Trinidad with Elvis, who she says is a devoted father. Genelle already had family in New York, and there wasn't much opportunity at home. (The year she moved, Trinidad and Tobago had an unemployment rate of more than 15%.) At first, she didn't like the loud people on the subways or the run-down look of Brooklyn, where she was staying with a sister. She moved back to Trinidad for a while, but in 1999, her mother lost her fight with ovarian cancer. Genelle was devastated. Trinidad seemed far too quiet without her mom's kind voice; Genelle moved back to New York soon after.
She wasn't sure what she wanted from Gotham, but as with many pretty young people, its nightclubs beckoned. She and cousin Lauren and other girlfriends liked downtown Manhattan's Webster Hall, a long-running if slightly cheesy dance club, and the more upscale, sexy NV Bar. These places don't get going until quite late--after 11 p.m.--and Genelle would be out until dawn some nights. "Roger would say, 'Just one [drink].' I would say, 'No, two.' And I would have two or three, and do all sorts of crazy stuff." Genelle loved to dance, and those nights wore her out. She usually slept most of Sunday so that she could look decent for work on Monday morning.