A little music played in the background, and the atmosphere was relaxing around the loft. I chose to play one of my father's old records of Ray Charles, and Michael seemed to love it. He told me how grateful he was to have had the chance to work with such a jazz and blues icon on the song We Are the World. It took me some time to realize that Michael had met, at some point in his life, all of my childhood's idols such as Paul McCartney. It is when Say, Say, Say and Baby Be Mine came out that I got a bit curious about who Michael was and why people were so crazy about him. But my curiosity didn't last long, because I chose to go to med school, which didn't leave too many room for any hobbies, to be honest.
I left my reverie and focused on Michael, who was seated crossed leg in the middle of the living room with
may records all around him. He was holding an old record of The Impressions, Curtis Mayfield's former band, with his right hand while he was reading something on the back, and he was eating yet another cookie with his other hand. I was witnessing this from afar, as I was coming back from the kitchen with two cups of tea on a trail. A huge grin appeared across my face at the sight. I could definitely see his inner child shining through his behavior. The more I looked at him, the more I got to meet the person he truly was, and the more joy I felt.
"Hey Hayley," he excitedly said with his mouth full, as he turned in my direction. "Do you know this record?"
"I grew up listening to it, I better know it," I chuckled slightly, as I set the trail on the coffee table. I knelt down next to him, and took the record from his hands. "People Get Ready must be one of my favorite songs."
"Aretha's cover of this song is mind-blowing! I remember hearing it on the radio, and I started to bob my head to it immediately. I love her so much," he smiled, shaking his head a bit.
"She's extraordinary," I verified, as I gave him the vinyl back. "Did you have the chance to meet her too?"
"Are you going to hate me if I tell you I did?" he asked shyly but with a little smile on, as he looked in my direction.
"You did?!" I asked, surprised. "Okay, I'm definitely jealous."
"At least you don't hate me," he grinned, and I rolled my eyes playfully at him. "So yeah, I did. It was back in the mid seventies. 1976 maybe? We met backstage, at the American Music Awards. It was the first time I met her, and I was quite blown away. It was like meeting the feminine version of James Brown for me."
"Wow," I said in awe. "You've been in this industry for quite awhile, I tend to forget that."
"Yeah," he sighed, as he put the record aside. "I was barely ten years old when I was asked to be the lead singer of the Jackson 5. I didn't regret anything though, I—I'm happy to be who I am. I just wished I had a normal childhood, you know?"
"I read that in your book. How you wished, as a kid, to be able to go out and play with the other kids from your neighborhood," I said, and he nodded his head.
"You started reading it, huh?" he smiled shyly, looking into my eyes.
"I did, I'm halfway through the book," I let him know, mirroring his shy expression. "Time flies by so fast when I'm reading it. It's like I can hear your voice in my head saying every word. It's... soothing."
"I'm glad you like it. You're gonna have to write a book about yourself so that we can be even, now," he joked, and I giggled at his remark. "You're gonna know me way better than I know you, it's not fair!"
"Tell me what you want to know about me," I told him, sitting crossed-leg in front of him. I took my cup of tea, just as Michael, and took a sip of it.
"Tell me about your childhood," he asked, as he put his back against the side of the couch. I didn't realize that he had taken off his penny loafers before going on the carpet, which I found incredibly thoughtful. He crossed his extended legs, and focused on me. "How was it?"
"It was filled with love," I told him, as memories from my childhood came into my mind. "I was an only child. Sadly, it wasn't a choice my parents made. My mother had some issues with her ovaries, and she had been told that she would never be able to give birth. But as you can see, miracles happen since she got me. My parents wanted to try to give me a brother or a sister, but they never succeeded," I explained. "But even though I was alone, my childhood was filled with joy. I never lacked anything, they always encouraged me to surpass me in everything I did, to follow my dreams and never give up, no matter what."
"They seemed to be wonderful parents," Michael remarked. "What about your friends? Did you have many?"
"Umm, not really. Elementary school was quite tough for me, so I didn't have much friends at that time. You know how kids can be harsh on each other," I shrugged, as I played with my fingers. "As an only child, I was used to being alone, and kids from my school called me a weirdo because I didn't want to be with them."
"It's so easy to label someone as a weirdo. Just because you stand out from the crowd doesn't mean you're a weirdo. I'm sure you were a great kid," he reassured me with a sincere smile, and I smiled internally at his words. "Did it change when you got in middle and high school?"
"It did. That's when I met Alice," I smiled at the memories that came flooding my mind. "She was the person I needed. She taught me how to tell people to fuck off." Michael's eyes widened at my use of words, and I immediately put my hand over my mouth, "Sorry," I mumbled, as I felt my cheeks heat up.
"I didn't know you had that in you," he giggled hiding himself behind his hand as well. "It's okay, don't worry. I don't like curse words, but if you do, I don't mind, really. Everybody has the right to express themselves the way they want to."
"I'm used not to use any curse words when I'm working, since I am surrounded by children, but I tend to let them slip out of my mouth when I'm not at work," I explained, chuckling nervously.
"It's okay. Just tell me more about your friend Alice," he showed me his perfect teeth. "She is the nurse who came by Charlie's room to get my autograph, right?"
"That'd be her," I laughed, at the memory of her awkward self. "She's the type of person that could make your day brighter just by being there. She's always teasing you, joking with you. She's always able to put a smile on my face, no matter how low I feel. And she is trustful. I trust her with my darkest secrets. She knows everything about me, about my life," I explained. "And she admires you a lot. She used to dress as a Thriller zombie for Halloween when your video clip came out," I let him know, laughing, as I remember Alice in her costume. "Prince and you really got her all shaken up back in the days."
He laughed out loud at that last part, which made my heart flutter. His laugh was everything. "That's the effect Prince has on women. He knows how to get them all disturbed and shaken up just by standing there."
"You don't realize it, but you do too," I pointed out, and immediately Michael hid himself behind his hands. "Don't hide yourself, it's true!"
"I just—, I don't think I am as hot as Prince," he admitted, revealing his embarrassed face. "But please, tell me more about your friends," he switched topic, and I found this adorable how embarrassed he got when told that women were all over him.
"Okay, so basically Alice was my only friend back in middle school and high school. She never left me and I never left her, we were like siblings. Then, when we started college, we met some new people, including—including my ex fiancé, John."
Michael's eyes became rounder at the mention of John, and I found humor in his reaction. But quickly, my amused self started to feel nervous. Michael was going to ask what happened between him and I, and I couldn't tell him the truth. I had to come up with a lie, and fast.
"Your ex fiancé? W—What happened?" he asked, utterly taken aback.
"We—uh, we just didn't have the same vision of life," I said, snickering inside at the pun I just used. I knew John dumped me because he couldn't believe and bear with the fact that I was different when I told him about my visions.
"For how long were you engaged to him?"
"We had been dating for five years when he asked me to marry him, but we stayed engaged for a few months," I explained, and Michael nodded his head slowly.
"Did he... Did he have the chance to meet your parents?" he asked, as sadness took place on his angelic face.
"He didn't. My parents left us seven years ago, on January 19th, 1984."
"I uh—I didn't have the courage to ask you the last time but... Did the police find them? The robbers?" Michael asked in a sweet voice, putting his cup of tea back on the coffee table, and brought his knees to his chest. "You have the right to tell me to shut up if my questions are too personal, or if you don't want to talk about it. It is more than understandable."
"It's okay," I nodded slightly, as I put my cup down as well. "We found them five months after it happened. As I witnessed the both of them leaving the house, I had to identify them among dozens of people after I answered hundreds of questions," I narrated. I was opening up to Michael with ease again, as everytime I had the chance to. "They're rotting in jail as we speak. They got the life sentence."
Michael stayed silent for a moment. He opened his arms for me, and without hesitation, I went into the comfort of them. I put my head on his shoulder, as he wrapped his arms my waist, still without speaking a word. His reassuring scent invaded my nose, and instantly a small beam appeared on my face as my eyes were tightly shut. The more I relaxed under his touch, the more I could feel every inch, every muscle of my body, like I was rediscovering what it felt like to be alive.
"You are... you are the best thing that's happened to me, Hayley."
Michael's voice echoed through my mind suddenly. I realized that his voice was in my head only, just like the last time I heard him say "I love you" back in Neverland. I didn't feel anything coming, it just popped into my head without me expecting it. It didn't hurt, nor did it feel uncomfortable for once, which surprised me. Was it because I was in his arms? Maybe he could trigger the visions and the rest, but also control them without knowing it. Maybe his affection was protecting me from getting hurt? I couldn't know.
"Thank you," I whispered to him, as I snuggled closer to the crook of his neck.
"For what?" he whispered back, as his breath tickled my forehead.
"For being here. For being you," I answered sincerely. To my surprise, Michael laid a gentle kiss on my head as a response, and brought me a bit closer to him by tightening his grip around my waist.
We stayed close like this for what seemed like a minute, when indeed, we stayed on the floor during three whole Ray Charles' songs. Not a word was spoken, as we were just enjoying the music, but above all, we were enjoying each other's presence.
***
Time passed by so quickly whenever Michael was around. In the blink of an eye, it was already dinner time, and I had no idea what to cook for him, so we ended up ordering Mexican food, Michael's favorite. I opened a fine bottle of wine that one of my patient's parents offered me a while ago, and we both settled on the floor around the coffee table to eat our dinner. The atmosphere was light, far away from the serious and formal atmosphere most people would expect when in Michael Jackson's presence. As the carefree person he was, it could only feel good and natural to be around him.
"What?" Michael asked me, as I didn't realize that I was staring at him. "Do I have something on my face?" he panicked a bit, as he wiped his mouth with a napkin.
"N—no, you don't have anything on your face," I reassured him with a slight smile. "I was just lost in my thoughts."
"What were you thinking about?" he wondered, as he put his taquito down.
"My parents. They would have loved you," I let him know, and he grinned at my words. "My dad used to tell me you were a genius."
"Oh, really?" he blushed at that point. "I—uh, wow. This makes my heart happy."
"I remember us watching Thriller for the first time on TV. He was blown away by your creativity, and the way you danced, acted, and sang. He was really admiring of your work. He went out and bought the album right after that," I narrated, chuckling. "You probably saw all of yours and your brothers records in there," I motioned to the place where I kept all of my dad and I's vinyl collection.
"I did. I thought it would be too pretentious for me to point that out," he admitted, and I found this cute. "I noticed you didn't have Bad, though."
"My dad was the one buying them, it's been ages since I didn't go in a record store to buy some. I just listen to what's on the radio. Lucky for you, you're all over it," I teased, and he giggled at that, shaking his head a little.
Our laughter died down when we heard a key in the key hole, and voices coming from outside the loft. In a swift motion, I rose from the floor and we both looked at each other with a little panic in our eyes.
"Shit, I forgot Carl was coming home," I muttered, rubbing my forehead.
"Do they know for us? I—I mean uh, do they know we're friends?" he stammered a bit, as his question sounded like we were more than just friends. I snickered at his embarrassed self.
"Yes, they—" I started, walking towards the front door, but stopped in the middle of my sentence when I noticed that Carl wasn't alone. He was visibly too busy making out with Alice to even notice I was still in the loft, and witnessing their display of affection from afar... with Michael who was a few feet behind me. "Ahem!" I cleared my throat, which surprised the both of them. Alice even let out a little scream.
"B—Brit, for fuck's sake, what the hell are you still doing here?!" Carl cursed with a hand over his heart while his over hand was on Alice's hip. "You scared the shit out of us!"
"First, it's my place, and second, I am the one who should ask questions. Since when are you guys back together?" I asked in astonishment, crossing my arms under my breasts, as I was waiting for an answer. "Garner?"
"Yesterday," Alice shamefully admitted, as she rolled her eyes. "I wanted to tell you, but I—holy... shit," she said, and I frowned at her sudden use of words.
"M—Mr. Jackson," Carl greeted politely, a bit confused by his being here. But he was calm. Calmer than Alice who was at a loss for words, and totally starstruck from the look on her face. "I am sorry you had to witness... us."
"Please, call me Michael," he gently said, as he shook his hand. "Carl, right? Don't worry about it. It's fine, there's nothing more beautiful than love."
"Excuse my girlfriend, she's a huge fan," Carl snickered, and I laughed along with him at the sight of Alice who didn't move an inch since she saw Michael here.
Michael walked closer to her, but still she couldn't seem to move. The poor girl was even more starstruck than the first time she saw him. It was hilarious to witness, and I couldn't seem to stop laughing at her.
"Alice, right? I remember you," Michael smiled sweetly, and finally Alice came out of her trance, and beamed shyly at him. "I've heard only good things about you."
"I—I've heard only good things about you too. This girl can't shut up about you," she announced, and I immediately stopped laughing. Instead, I became so embarrassed that I would have wanted to become a mouse to hide in a little hole. I knew she did that on purpose to make me shut up.
Bitch is the only word that came to my mind. I wished she could have read my thoughts at that moment, because I would have cursed the hell out of her.
"Oh, really?" Michael said, and I was quite taken aback by his facial expression: he was smirking to Alice. However, when he turned around to look at me, his shy self came back, as he could barely look at me in the eyes. "I'm glad."
"What are you guys doing here? I thought you'd be at Mr— at Michael's house by now," Carl frowned, and I realized that I had some explaining to do.
Michael and I finished dinner while I explained to Carl and Alice what happened earlier in the afternoon. I also told them that we would be both gone by one in the morning since Bill was coming back to get the both of us and go back to Neverland. Of course, Carl and Alice asked many questions to Michael as they were pretty curious to know what it felt like to be surrounded by normal people, since he was used to be around important and famous ones, or if some of the rumors in the press were true. He was actually happy to refute each and every single lie that was written about him in the press: no, he didn't buy the Elephant man's bones; no, he never slept in a hyperbaric chamber; and no, he never bleached his skin.
"Is vitiligo doing that to you?" Carl asked the question I wanted to ask for a while. It was obvious that Michael's skin had become lighter over the years, and as a doctor, I knew that vitiligo killed the pigmentation of the skin.
Michael's face turned sad all of a sudden, and I felt a tingling sensation in my guts. Immediately, I put my hand over his, and he averted his eyes in my direction. "It's okay. We're all part of the medical field, you can talk to us. We won't tell anybody," I encouraged, as I rubbed the top of his hand gently, right in front of Alice's incredulous stare.
He sighed heavily, and took my hand in his. He looked down at both of our hands, and squeezed mine a little before he spoke. "I—It is vitiligo, yes," he shamefully said, and the sight broke my heart. He didn't choose to have this disease. He couldn't help it, and it broke my heart to see how down this made him feel. "At first, I could easily cover the white spots that were appearing on my body. I would put a little foundation here and there, and that would be it. But now—now it's getting worse."
"A—Are you using Monobenzone now? To try to unify the tone of your skin?" I asked, and cleared my voice because it was on the edge of cracking.
"Yes," he nodded, as he, once again, looked at our hands on his lap. "This is why I hate it when people say I'm trying to bleach my skin. I am a Black American and I am proud of my race. My skin may become whiter, but whenever I look in the mirror, I know I am Black."
"Those people don't know shit," Alice chimed in. "There is no such thing as skin-bleaching. How is it even a thing?"
"Right? They're insane. They'd sell lies just to make money. They've been dragging my name through the mud for years now, but I know my fans don't read what's written about me, and it's all that really matters."
I watched Michael closely as he spoke to Carl about how people made up stories about him just to make money, and I could definitely see the hurt in his eyes. I could feel deep inside of me that all he wanted was to be loved, because all he did through his life was spread love around him.
Without noticing it, Michael was gently rubbing his thumb over my knuckles as my hand was still in his. This feeling put me at ease, and I didn't want it to end. But visibly, it wasn't in Alice's plans to let me enjoy it, since she excused the both of us, and dragged me to Carl's room down the hall. She closed the door behind us, and I sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to tell me what was going on.
"You're here. With Michael Jackson."
"Nice, Sherlock! Did you find out by yourself?" I teased her, suppressing a laugh.
"Oh shut up, don't play smart with me. I can't believe you were going to leave without telling me Michael was there with you!"
"I've had one of the weirdest days of my life, I'm sorry," I apologized sincerely, as my friend took place on the edge of the bed with me. "As I explained earlier, jos bodyguard and I had to find a way to make sure Michael wouldn't get mobbed, and that I wouldn't be seen with him. He cares about my privacy, he doesn't want me to be in the public eye."
"Your privacy isn't the only thing he cares about," she snickered, and I rolled my eyes. "What? For real though! Michael Jackson is into you, Brit, I'm telling you this."
"Can we talk about how you didn't tell me that you and Carl were back together?" I asked, crossing my arms. Yes, I did switch topic.
"I—I wanted to tell you, but we needed to be sure that we wanted this. That we wanted to start again, but more seriously this time. We came here to discuss about us, but um... it turned into a make-out session," she shrugged with a smirk, and I chuckled at her.
"I'm happy for you, Al," I sincerely and seriously said, as I pulled her into a hug. "Carl is a good man, he's changed."
"Am I a horrible person for hoping that his ex wife isn't expecting his baby?" she asked, and I broke our embrace to look at her in the eyes. "I'm scared it might be his."
"Even if it is his, he won't let you down. If he chose to be with you, it's because he wants to. He knows that there is a risk for the baby to be his, but he also knows that there is a chance that it won't. Either way, at the end of the day, he'll still have you."
"I'm not ready to be a mother in law, so it better not be his," she snorted. "Anyway, we should get back to our men before Carl starts telling embarrassing stories about you."
"I'm sure he'll leave this task for you, bitch," I retorted, as we both got out of the room. Alice laughed out loud, and I shook my head, following close behind her. "Crazy pants."
When we got back to the living room, Michael seemed fascinated by what Carl was telling him. From what I heard, he seemed to be telling him how he saved a little boy who came into the ER with a brain hemorrhage and multiple bones fractures. Michael's passion for doctors and surgeon never failed to make me smile. He considered us like heroes, life saviors. We did save lives, but at the end of the day, we were just ordinary people. Just like he was to me. To many, he was the legendary Michael Jackson, but to me, he was just Michael.