“He gave me a hug and said, ‘Thanks for being afan,” ’ Ms. Blue said.

She still has the marker he signed her CD with, and plans to display the marker, the CD and her ticket stubs in a shadow box.

About a month later, he came back to the mall, but entered her store this time, she said. Jackson didn’t remember her, but that didn’t bother Ms. Blue.

“He was just as nice,” she said. “He sees so many people.”

Through all the bizarre turns Jackson’s life has taken, Ms. Blue has not wavered in her admiration of him.

“That didn’t bother me,” she said of the tabloid headlines. “I stayed a fan. I really never thought he was guilty of the allegations. The one thing I think he was guilty of was being too caring. He was taken advantage of.”

Whitney Houston was in Ms. Blue’s store when one of her bodyguards broke the news that Jackson was arrested on child molestation charges.

“We were both in the store in tears,” she said.

She was the same way Friday when a friend texted her that Jackson had had a heart attack, and she found out later he had died.

“Shock was an understatement,” she said. “I cried so hard. Words don’t describe how I was distraught.”

She spent the rest of the day, and much of Friday, glued to the television and her computer looking for news updates.

“Anyone who liked music, it’s an emotional, sad day,” she said. If you were a music lover, who didn’t Michael Jackson touch?”

With Jackson gone, Ms. Blue is taking on the task of handing down his legacy to a younger generation, including a cousin and her daughters.

“My kids know all the songs,” she said. “They listen to all the stories.”