...The morning of the interview was here and I got up early as I had a train to catch to NYC. My outfit was decided (along with a backup plan) and my bag was packed. I drove to 30th Street Station in Philly, parked my car, got my ticket and boarded. As a child I loved taking the train. I originally grew up on Staten Island and my brother and I used to take it up to CT to visit our dad and my Aunt lived up there too. I settled into my seat with a book and tried to relax. It was going to be a long day with a lot of things on the schedule and I wanted to be ready mentally and physically when I arrived. Once the train got into the station I got off and grabbed a taxi to the filming location. It was this really cool raw rented space. The associate producer greeted me and introduced me around to the crew, the makeup and hair people and the producer. One room was set up to do hair and wigs another section of the space had a huge makeup table with several makeup artists, another section for our change of clothes and catering and then the back was where the camera, audio and interview was going to be placed. It was too early for that to have been done yet. Everyone was so friendly, warm and welcoming. Throughout the day they had all been so kind to us and individually took the time to voice their support and how brave we were to speak out. It was such a positive experience and made it all a lot easier on us knowing how much support was actually out there.
After being introduced and given a tour of the space I put my bags down and settled into the makeup chair. I've always been a girly girl and figured while I was there I would enjoy getting my hair and makeup done. The artist worked for the ABC network and had some fun stories of all the celebrities and politicians she had met. We chatted easily. The 3 other girls arrived one at a time and we were introduced. None of which I had met during the trial and sentencing. We took turns switching out of the makeup and hair chairs and sometimes just sat by each other not only talking about encounters with Marsalis but ourselves, our lives and our interests. Even a discussion of a recent Law & Order: SVU episode that mirrored our case all of us had seen. One of the women was Marsalis' girlfriend during his reign of terror and suffered her own abuse from him so she was not in disguise. We bonded that day and were so happy that each of us began the process of moving on. One of the girls was getting married the following year and the other two girls had moved away and started new jobs. To this day I am still very close with one of them, we email once or twice a week and in the past 5 years have seen each other through the good and bad of what life throws at us that has nothing to do with Marsalis. We are both in relationships (she married and I living with my boyfriend) with amazing men and are very happy and only occasionally bring up the subject. She supports me 100% in what I'm doing and I am so thankful to have her in my life!
When we were all finished being disguised by the professionals we put our interview clothes on and it was time to start with the B roll filming. They filmed us for individual closeups, outside together on the street and other various shots to be used during the report to enhance the interview. We all began to relax during our lunch and dinner breaks with the crew so when the time came around to have the microphones put on us, so they could do the sound check and arrange in our interview chairs we were much more comfortable. The producer was receiving updates as to our interviewers time of arrival which we knew would be shortly. We were as ready as ever to get started...
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