For richer or poorer. For better or for worse.
If you’ve ever said those vows, you understand the solemnity and the promise they make; namely, that you’re in it for the long-haul, come what may, no matter what shakes. You promise to be there for good but, as in “Believing in Magic” by Cookie Johnson (with Denene Millner), it’s also in sickness and in health.
Earleatha “Cookie” Kelly, now Cookie Johnson, “had no clue” who Earvin “Magic” Johnson was when she sent off her application to Michigan State University. Her then-boyfriend, who was the jealous sort, mentioned Magic, but she was undeterred. Seriously, how would a girl from Detroit meet up with a college basketball star like that?
But that’s exactly what happened: like most MSU coeds, Cookie’s roommate had a crush on Magic. It was inevitable that while the roomie chased after a chance to be in the presence of the b-baller, Cookie would meet him and catch his eye.
Thus started a dozen-year, on-again, off-again relationship in which Cookie often didn’t know where she stood. They both hated to be controlled, which led to arguments, splits and reconciliations. He asked her to marry him three times and then broke the first two engagements; he tried to break the third, but she called his bluff, they were married quick in a beautiful wedding he insisted on having and she took his name.
Less than two months after their nuptials, Magic called his new bride while on the road. She was pregnant with their first child; he told her they needed to talk. Her mind raced, but it couldn’t prepare her for the truth: Magic was HIV-positive.
Back in 1991, Magic says, HIV was a “death sentence,” but he decided that he wouldn’t hide it; as a straight man, he wanted people to know that AIDS was not a “gay person’s disease.” The Johnsons feared for their unborn baby, endured rumors, shunned paparazzi and lost friends. Still, Cookie took her vows seriously and relied on her faith in God to keep her calm then, and in the days to come…
As memoirs go, “Believing In Magic” is okay. Nor horrid. Not stellar.
The book starts out with a bang and an announcement that no newlywed dreams of hearing. It then reverts to a long, looong story of a relationship that surely took enormous patience to endure, but it’s a tale that could have used a heavier editorial pen and fewer recreated conversations.
Fortunately, it gets better: the winning part of this book is in its latter half. There, Cookie shares a bit about life with an HIV-positive spouse and his ongoing health issues, she writes about learning of their son’s sexuality and accepting their daughter’s search for her birth family.
(“Believing in Magic” by Cookie Johnson with Denene Millner, c.2016, Howard Books, $26/$35 Canada, 272 pages.)
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