Magic and Cookie Johnson speak out for the first time on love, AIDS and marriage - Interview - includes articles on AIDS statistics and Magic Johnson's AIDS education campaign among black students - Cover Story

Ebony, April, 1992 by Laura B. Randolph

SHE was just sitting there in the television room, relaxing and flipping the channels, when be walked in and shattered her world. At first she thought she'd misunderstood him, that her mind was playing tricks on her.

She couldn't possibly be hearing him right. He couldn't be telling her he had the AIDS virus. Not now. Not the month after their wedding. Not now that they'd finally begun their life together as husband and wife. And not now-please, God, not now!-that she was pregnant with the baby they'd talked about having for so long.

It had to be a mistake. Some cruel hoax. But one look at Magic's face and Earleatha (Cookie) johnson knew it was true. "It was," she says softly, "your worst nightmare come true." The tears came in uncontrollable waves ("I don't remember how long I cried") and as she struggled to absorb the implications, a rush of emotions vied for control of her mind. There was shock. I can't believe this is happening. Panic. What about the baby? Anger. How could you let this happen? But the emotion that triumphed, eclipsing all others, was fear. For herself and for her man.

"I was so scared-for him and for myself " she confides in her first interview since her husband, Earvin (Magic) johnson, announced he has the AIDS virus.

Just seared to death."

Seeing the depth of her pain, Magic struggled with his own emotions. "I was angry because I'd just gotten married and now I had to put this on her"' he says, recalling the rush of feelings that engulfed him after tests for an insurance policy revealed he had the AIDS virus. "I was afraid just to go home and tell her .. I kept going back and forth in my mind wondering, "How can I soften it? What can I say?. . . And I was shocked because I never thought it could happen to me. "

But more than any concern for himself, he hurt for his wife, the woman who had loved him since they were college sweethearts at Michigan State. We'd waited so long and finally we'd done it", he says shaking his head. I wanted everything to be perfect. My whole world was going to be perfect with her. And then BAM!"

It couldn't help, of course, knowing he was the primary reason it took 14 years, two postponed wedding dates and, as Cookie puts it, "a lot of breaking up and getting back together" for their romance to mature into marriage. I'd always thought that I couldn't play basketball and be married," Magic says, intimating it was the pressures of his dazzling pro career that made him wait so long to commit. Suddenly he stops. As he stares across the room, you can feel him weighing his next words, deciding just how close to the truth he wants to take you, how deep he wants it to get.

I was afraid," he confides upon reflection. "The truth is, I never really let her into my world. You work so hard and you've been used to being by yourself, making all the decisions by yourself and doing it all alone. Sometimes that's the problem with us being strong Black men. We feel we can't really let a woman into our world. But that's wrong, because you know what I found out? All the time I was thinking she would be harmful, she was really helpful. Brothers need to understand that old saying is true: Behind every good man, there's a good woman.' No, make that beside every good man, there's a good woman."

Though she left her job as a buyer for a Toledo department store three years ago to move to Los Angeles, it was only in the last year that Magic really let her become an integral part of his life. "She went through everything with me-the games, the pain, the playoffs-and I'd never really let that happen before," he confesses. "She helped me so much I said, Wow, I should have been doing this a long time ago."'

That's exactly what he told her that afternoon last August when, while vacationing in the Virgin Islands, lie called lier in L.A. and told her he was finally ready "I'd been thinking about her every day," he remembers. "I tried to get her to marry me the next week. I didn't want to wait any longer." Three weeks later they wed. "It was the best thing I ever did," he says, breaking into his signature light-tip-the-might smile.

Magic and Cookie are sitting, hands entwined, in a photographer's studio in Beverly Hills. Cookie is explaining why she doesn't like-and rarely gives-interviews. "I prefer the background she says, finding and holding her husband's gaze. "I'm much more comfortable there. "

In person, she is much taller 5'8") and thinner (size 4) than she appears in her photographs. In fact, though she is well into her pregnancy, save for a slight bulge in her midriff, she's still taut, lean, willowy.

"You'll be fine," Magic assures her, pulling her close and smoothing her hair. I'm going to step outside so you can talk woman to woman. But I'll be close if you need me."

Magic and Cookie have been close since 1977 when, as college freshmen, they met at a party. "It was so funny because every girl on campus wanted to meet him," Cookie remembers of the night she first set eyes on Magic. "I just thought forget it. There's no way he's going to pick me over all these other women.