What Courtney Knew

First of all, I did a bad job with the names. I've thought about going back to fix it, but by now it seems a bit late.

Usually I have a chart with all the characters listed, but for some reason I missed the fact that almost every character's name starts with an M: Marcie, Maisie, Misty/Mary, Margaret/Maisie... even Miriam! And I bet I missed one or two.

And why were there *two* Maisie's? Maisie Beale, the little girl, and Maisie Sabatino, now known as Mrs. Wix?

Honestly, I don't remember why. I did have a reason for the two Maisie's, but I can't remember what it was. Maybe it was just to bug young Maisie as she looked in the yearbook. That was probably the only reason, but of course it had the collateral effect of mixing people up.

There is the twin-naming thing, too: Misty's real name is Mary, and so her twin is Margaret. Mary and Margaret: very common twin names. Again, somehow I missed all the M's.

And speaking of similar names, why is Ms. Overmore, who teaches at a Blessed Yvette High School, called "Yvette"? More confusion! And now she'll be the principal? She'll be the Yvette in Blessed Yvette.

I must have had a reason... it wasn't for a silly joke. Unfortunately, I can't remember why I made that match-up. I only remember that I did it on purpose.

In any case, another slip-up on my part. Sorry!
 

However, I *did* have a reason for calling the poor little rich girl Maisie, even if it is an old-fashioned, outdated name.

And EVEN IF it was way too similar to the name Marcie... People mixed up the names in the comments, and I mixed them up myself in the story. Luckily, attentive readers were quick to point out my errors, and I fixed them.

The names are way too close! If you twiddle your eyes, they're identical.

And yet, even though all the M-starting names was a mistake, and putting Yvette in Blessed Yvette's was a bone-headed move, I don't think "Maisie" was wrong.
 

Why didn't I pick a different name, a modern name, a name that was popular in 1993, when Maisie was born? A name like Sabrina or Haley or Briana? Why not call the story What Courtney Knew?

I was surprised that no one noticed — or at least no one said — that I'd not only taken the title from a Henry James story (What Maisie Knew), but I'd even used the same names of his characters.

His Maisie started off like mine: a young girl, a minor, inherits a pile of money. Her parents have a bitter divorce and fight over the girl's money.

She reacts to her suffering by pretending to not see, or not understand, what's going on. In her case, everyone believes that What Maisie Knew was exactly nothing.
 

While I was reading Henry James' story, I had no idea what was going to happen in Marcie Donner's life. I knew that she would move to New Jersey and go to a Catholic girl's school, but beyond that, nothing. I couldn't cook up any wild, rope-swinging stunts for her, and I was stalled.

At the same time, there was another story I was working on, a story that had nothing to do with Marcie. It was a ghost story that was SUPPOSED to be a transgendered Topper-like comedy. It was moving along, but it was going in a direction that I didn't like. Somehow, it became very grim and dark, and my dead girl turned out to not be very nice. Plus, I had absolutely no idea how it was going to end.
 

So there I was: writing a "comedy" about a ghost that wasn't funny at all, and wanting to write more about Marcie, but lacking a story.

All the while, that title What Maisie Knew kept banging around in my head, and it suddenly struck me that What Maisie Knew might be something very interesting: something about Marcie Donner.
 

Of course, it couldn't be a frontal collision. Maisie couldn't just meet Marcie and say, "You look familiar... Hey! I know you! You're Mark Donner, in a dress!"

It would be much worse if it wasn't certain... if it was a impending threat... if I kept adding reasons that pointed to Maisie knowing Mark, or knowing *about* Mark.

And there were a lot of indications of just that.

Unfortunately, putting the Mark-tomboy story in front of it all effectively killed the issue for most readers... even if, ironically, the tomboy story made it possible for EVERYONE in the story to talk about Marcie as a boy. Mrs. Means does it right off the bat. Maisie keeps bringing it up. Even Susan talks about it.

Of course, Maisie doesn't KNOW that Marcie was a boy. She "knows," but she doesn't know-know. It's not a complete, fully-articulated, verified-by-evidence knowing. It's more of an unformed idea that kept running around at the edge of her consciousness, jumping and waving... Maisie was never *sure*; she just had the sense that there was SOMETHING in Marcie's Marky past that didn't fit.

One of the biggest hints came at the end of Chapter 14 ("Outed Already?"), when Maisie says the name "Mark Donner" out loud in a thoughtful way, as if it rang a bell. Because it did ring a bell.

Another big hint came at the end of Chapter 17 ("Just Like Us"), when Marcie's father realizes that Maisie and her mother used to live in Tarhent, the town where Mark grew up.

There are other hints spread throughout the story. I'm not going to list them all.

By the end of the story, you can conclude that Maisie had at least *heard* the name "Mark Donner" when she was younger. This is why she called Miriam Clegg: because she knew that Miriam would know, and she hoped that Miriam might have some juicy gossip about young Marcie. Maisie wasn't expecting to find out that "Mark" wasn't a just tomboyish girl, and she was shocked.

So, Maisie knew. Or half-knew.

But to my surprise, none of the comments at any point said, "OH MY GOD! What if Maisie knew that Marcie used to be a boy! What if they knew each other back in California?"

I mean, why do you think Maisie came from California? She could have easily come from Austin, Texas, or Beanbag, Wisconsin, or any other place.

It's funny, the way so many story elements got analyzed down to atoms in the comments, and so many close guesses about what was coming next, but no one gave any attention to Maisie knowing Mark, or knowing *of* Mark.

But, anyway, that was my idea: that Maisie knew. It's still there, in the story, coloring things...
 

Of course, Maisie knew what James' Maisie pretended not to know: she knew that her parents didn't want her. At least her father doesn't. Her mother does, but Maisie may never come to realize it.
 

So, one evening I was walking up Comm Ave, here in Boston, thinking about Marcie Donner and a young heiress named Maisie, trying to work out the story, but it still didn't go right, and for sure it wasn't funny AT ALL.

Which reminded me of my ghost story, which was downright grim. And I suddenly saw in my mind's eye a house I'd once lived in, and there, in the upstairs window, a little face looking out.

Misty Sabatino.

Finally, it all clicked.

I love the name, and the girl, and the spooky things she can do, and I miss her now that she's "moved on."

My favorite episode was Chapter 25, "And Then What Happened?" which ended like this:
 

"Who are you?" she asked me. "Why are you here?"

I tried to respond, but panicked: the words caught in my throat. A wave of fear washed over me, and I clutched my blanket desperately with both hands.

There was no reason to ask who she was: I recognized her right away.

She was Misty Sabatino.

 
I was aiming for gooseflesh; I know that *I* got when I read it; I don't know about anyone else.
 

And if it was a movie? I imagined Emma Roberts playing Marcie, and Victoria Justice as Misty. (I watch a lot of kids shows with my daughter.)

And that's What Maisie Knew!