Chapter One
I stand at the craft-services table, wearing a delicate blue traveling coat and matching bonnet. One of my cream-colored gloves is clenched between my front teeth to facilitate the process of scrolling anxiously through Twitter.
I knew the news would break sooner or later, but I still wasn’t prepared for this level of public humiliation.
@EW: Major Chuck Brown recast: 2-time Teen Choice Award winner Tess Bright OUT ahead of Season 5
@Celebri.tea: Anon from Vancouver: T*ss Br*ght wasn’t replaced bc of “scheduling conflicts.” she was CANNED bc she became totally unreliable in S3&4. Production nicknamed her “Tess the Mess”
I’m on the verge of vomiting all down the front of my beautiful, period-appropriate costume. Panicking, I continue scrolling down the feed, before smashing headlong into the digital brick wall that is the public announcement from my former showrunner.
@ChuckBrownOfficial: Statement on Loosie recasting from showrunner, Donna Cox, in photo attached.
“We categorically deny the rumors swirling that Tess Bright has been recast due to unreliability and unprofessionalism. We refer you to the statement from Tess’ team, which states that she is departing the series due to scheduling conflicts with the shoot for her upcoming film, Northanger Abbey. Cast and crew here at Chuck Brown send Tess all our love and support! xoxo, Donna”
My breathing starts to even out. Donna did me a solid here, which she really didn’t owe me. But the public denial hasn’t impressed everyone, and loads of fans are speculating that it’s just a professional courtesy—which it sorta is. All around me, I can hear the bustling of the production crew as they prep the next scene. I face the corner of the craft-services tent so nobody passing by can read the humiliating news from my expression.
@RosingsParkour: Statement from CB showrunner only supports the rumor IMHO. why bother denying unless it’s close to the truth? SMH. Tess is just gonna drag this Northanger adaptation down
@makeatomelette: Tess Bright has a face that has seen an iPhone. Sorry not sorry.
@Half_Agony: I’m so torn. Obviously I want to see Northanger Abbey for the gorgeousness that is Hugh Balfour, but I think Tess will ruin it for me.
It’s been almost nine months since major casting for Northanger Abbey was announced and I had really hoped the outrage would die down. No chance of that now. This recasting news has only fanned the flames. Listen: even when I went in for the auditions, I knew I was a long shot. Nobody casts the girl best known for her work on an increasingly bizarre teen drama based on a long-running cartoon strip for the lead in a major-motion-picture adaptation of a classic work of literature.
Still, I’d hoped audiences would be open to seeing my performance before passing judgment. I need people to like me in this role. Badly. It’s all I have left of my career.
And look, I’m not going to lie. I completely understand why I’d been unemployed until I got Northanger Abbey. It had been a long time since I’d given Chuck Brown my best work. I am not proud of that, at all. But I’d been catatonic in the months following my mom’s funeral. Not lying motionless in bed, necessarily. I was still walking and talking and showing up to set, albeit frequently late. But the light in my eyes wasn’t there anymore. I knew that because I’d seen the reels of my recent work. The disgruntled fans of Chuck Brown were right—I was phoning it in for Season Four. I’d also been half-assing it for much of Seasons Two and Three, ever since we’d learned that Mom was sick.
My agent told me they were casting for an adaptation of Northanger Abbey about nine months after I lost her. It was the first time I felt a flicker of real emotion in what felt like an eternity, instead of just … numbness. I’ve never been a coma patient—I’ve just played one on TV—but emotionally, it felt like waking up in a hospital bed after years asleep. The news forced me to get a grip. Northanger Abbey is an underrated, underadapted Austen. And it was my mom’s second-favorite one.
And I guess along the way I convinced the director and the casting department to forget about Chuck Brown—I mean, I kind of already had. But when it came to Northanger Abbey, I had to show up for this. I had to risk it all and prove my talent to not only everyone in that casting room but also myself. I had to get that role or die trying. Because if I could pay tribute to my mom with an Austen movie, I was going to nail it. I was going to be a revelation. I’d be a prayer and a eulogy and a heartfelt epitaph.
I’d be my mother’s daughter.
“Tess!” Katie from the wardrobe department rushes over, swatting me away from the food station. “Do not tell me you were eating in that costume!”
I fumble my phone in my haste to pull the glove out of my mouth. “Only carrot sticks and celery!”
Katie gives a wry laugh. “Because you don’t have the ability to eat anything even halfway liquid without getting it all over yourself!” She points a stubby finger at my loose glove. “And don’t think I didn’t see you with that in your mouth. It’s hand-embroidered, Tess.”
I give Katie my most sheepish expression. “Sorry, K.” My stomach churns as I wonder if Katie has seen the news about me. Maybe she’s judging me now, privately thinking that I’m a huge mess, and my costume carelessness is just a symptom of my larger character flaws.
Katie returns a grudging smile, and my muscles unclench. “Please try to remember our commitment to costume continuity.”
“For you, my dear,” I tell her, pocketing my gloves and putting them out of harm’s way, “anything.”
Just then, I see a towering blur of charcoal gray speed past me. I shoot my hand into the air, peeling after my costar. “Oh, Hugh! Would you be free to run lines for this next scene with me? I really want to get this right.” Hugh is famously dedicated to his craft. Maybe, if I can just convince him that I’m also taking this überseriously, I can break through to him. And hopefully make this massive career risk I took for Northanger Abbey worth it.
Hugh Balfour—the authentically British actor who was cast opposite me as the movie’s romantic lead, Henry Tilney—comes to an abrupt, though reluctant, stop. Heat is rising in my cheeks from the exertion of catching up with him. Hugh has incredibly long legs, and I am in period-accurate Regency stays, which may have been perfectly comfortable for those who were used to wearing them day in and day out but to which I have not yet become accustomed.
Honestly, I’m the kind of person who comes home and immediately unhooks her modern bra, so learning to like stays was probably always a reach for me.
“Miss Bright,” Hugh tells me, his thunderous voice dour, “how many times do I have to inform you that I do not run lines?”
“At least once more,” I tease him. I hit Hugh with a cheeky grin, praying that banter will make the ice between me and my costar finally thaw. Hugh considers himself a strict Method actor, but so far, he’s coming off more as a big snob. Really, what else can you call someone who refuses to socialize on set, who sticks to Regency-era manners and address, and won’t rehearse with his scene partner? To top it all off, Hugh won’t sit in the makeup trailer if an actress is present, because according to him, Henry Tilney wouldn’t be alone with an unmarried woman without risking the ire of polite society.
I don’t care that he was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art—as far as I can tell, he is out of his goddamn mind.
But I will not not be liked, even by some stuffy, blue-blood lunatic. Certainly not when so much is riding on our chemistry in this movie. People already hate me and love him. Fans will be going into this movie expecting me to suck, which, I am happy to inform you, I do not. But if we can’t sell the romance between our characters, the whole film will land like a lead balloon, and people will blame it on me.
I cannot be like Dakota Johnson in the Netflix Persuasion. I cannot. I don’t have the career she has—this is my big break and my last shot. If I blow this, I don’t bounce back. I’m twenty-six, and God knows Hollywood loves to call relatively young women old news the moment they disappoint. Twenty-seven is creeping up on me with Charlotte Lucas’s voice, telling me, I’m frightened! And I don’t even have any parents left to be a burden on.
Without Chuck Brown as my fallback option, I’ll be lucky if I’m funneled off into the Hallmark-holiday-movie-industrial complex before fading into utter irrelevance.
Not that Hugh Balfour, hotshot nepo-baby up-and-comer, would care about any of that. He’s two years older than me at twenty-eight, but as a man, he’s got a lot more years in the tank to establish himself. Not that he really needs to: his filmography is already much more impressive than mine. He’s had a prominent secondary role in a Christopher Nolan biopic and a two-episode arc on the latest season of The Crown, and the rest of his IMDb page is nicely rounded out with dark, Scorsese-esque dramas that really make the audience think about themes and directorial intent.
Chuck Brown usually just makes people wonder what cocktail of recreational drugs our writers are on.
“Fraternization is not a part of my process,” Hugh tells me. His expression is so pinched it looks like he’s been sucking on sour candy. As if Hugh Balfour, scion of centuries of English stiff-upper-lippishness, would ever do something so undignified.
It’s kind of a shame that Hugh spends every second of the day scowling. He really is extraordinarily handsome whenever he doesn’t look so irritated—as you might expect from a movie star. But he isn’t the typical Hollywood-megablockbuster kind of good-looking. You wouldn’t see him in your Christmas-release action flick, walking away from an explosion with a toothpick in his mouth. No fake veneers, artfully sprayed-on tan, or dehydrated muscles. He’s got an almost Byronic look to him, like he should be standing on a cliff somewhere, the wind blowing his dark curls back from his noble brow as he thinks deep and troubled thoughts about the fate of his lost love. He is cursedly afflicted with high, aristocratic cheekbones and flashing dark eyes, which mesmerize as much as they terrify.
But you can’t focus on any of that when you’re too busy being sick to death of his shitty personality.
Having firmly denied my request for a cordial relationship, Hugh starts walking again.
I follow him. I’m nothing if not dogged.
“I will not be put off forever,” I say, hearing my voice hitch up a shrill half octave and not doing anything to stop it.
“No, not forever,” Hugh mutters. “Just until we wrap.”
“Come on,” I whine. “I know you’ve got your fancy little process, but I have to get to know my scene partner. Can’t we meet in the middle on this one?”
Hugh arches a dark, sardonic brow. “If you don’t mind, it looks like it’s about to rain, and we’ll be set back hours. I would prefer to spend those hours dry in my trailer.” We have just reached said trailer. He takes the handle of his door—which often sticks, I have noticed—and jerks it open, hard. Like he’s angry at it.
“Or you could spend them in my trailer,” I suggest, truly hoping that where all else fails I can annoy him into liking me. “It’s just as big!”
“No thank you,” Hugh snorts. “I’ve heard about the state of your trailer.”
He steps inside and snaps the door shut in my face.
He is really such a dick.
Chapter Two
I return to the safety and warmth of my trailer to wait out the impending storm. For about ten minutes, I distract myself by swiping idly through Bumble. I immediately swipe left on anybody who seems like they’re on the production crew, and study the faces of some of the locals, wondering if any one-night entanglements would relieve my stress or just add to it. I opt to match with no one, in the end. I can’t be trusted with love. Never could.
Like Marianne Dashwood, I’ve always been more sensibility than sense. I throw myself fully into whatever relationship I’m in, and sometimes that intensity scares people. Ryan, the last guy I seriously dated, bailed on me when Mom was just starting chemo. We’d been dating two months when I told him I was in love with him. Came on too strong, I guess, because the next time I saw him, it was because he was featured on Page Six, escorting a supermodel to his movie premiere. Since then, I’ve been on a strict diet of no-strings-attached stress relief only. And somehow I still end up getting hurt.
It probably doesn’t help that I’m a sucker for a pretty face—something Hollywood’s full of—and maybe not the best judge of character. I always seem to pick the cheaters, ghosters, and commitmentphobes. Just one more way I can’t seem to get my life together.
I toss my phone onto the couch in frustration, realizing that getting all mush-brained about some random guy right now would only distract me from the one person I do desperately need to create some chemistry with: Hugh Balfour.
Hugh doesn’t appear to be on any of the dating apps I’ve downloaded. He probably has some perfect, old-money girlfriend back home in London. And that means he’s probably faithful, too. So while Hugh may be a narcissist, he seems to comport himself about 66.6 percent more respectably than most of my exes.
I sigh, leaning my head against the plastic window of my trailer, trying to shake myself out of this funk.
We’ve come out to jolly (and rainy) old England, specifically Hampshire, the same county where Jane Austen actually lived and died, to shoot the majority of our scenes. You’d think Hugh would loosen up a little back on his native soil, but nuh-uh. The stick is still firmly lodged up his surprisingly shapely ass.
There’s a lot of upside to our tour of Hampshire. I’m told we’ll be visiting Winchester Cathedral, where Jane is actually entombed, for the wedding scene. And for the establishing shots of the titular Northanger Abbey, we visited this massive local hotel that used to be some rich-ass, snobby family’s actual home. It was incredible. All gray stone and turrets and multistory windows that must have been a real flex back in the day. I’ve never imagined that any place could be so intimidatingly huge, short of, like, the Vatican. The hotel manager gave the principal cast a tour as a courtesy, and she said that the house had over sixty bedrooms, with the grounds clocking in at nearly a thousand acres.
Hugh, for his part, very obviously wasn’t listening to the manager as we strolled through the place. His eyes were completely glazed over. The only time I saw a sign of life from him was when he gave this delicate snort after I asked the manager if this was the same place where they shot Downton Abbey.
So sue me. Fancy, old houses all look the same.
I suppose that Hugh, growing up in this country and with, I take it, multigenerational wealth, thinks I’m laughably ignorant. And I guess I am. I grew up in significantly humbler circumstances than he did, given that both his parents are critically acclaimed British actors and my mom was a dental hygienist. It’s nepotism, really. Can he be so much more talented than I am, the daughter of a working-class single mom, when we both ended up in exactly the same place, starring in exactly the same movie?
Nevertheless, I sit in my trailer, my chin resting in my hands as I stare dolefully out the window, watching the rain pound down on the verdant English countryside. The metallic pinging of the rain hitting the roof is almost trance-inducing. It certainly makes a girl slip deeply into her most melancholic thoughts. Hugh was right about one thing: my trailer is not in the best condition. Much like my trailer on set at Chuck Brown, this one is gradually accumulating the same everyday debris I leave in my wake everywhere I go. I haven’t spent too much time in here yet, but the trailer is already messy enough that it’s starting to remind me of home. I don’t like to admit it, but sometimes I find myself less likely to wash lipstick off a used glass in small part because it reminds me of the old days, when Mom was around.
After an hour or so of heavy rain, the sky lightens and the rain slows down to a persistent drizzle. At about this point, staring dully out my window, I realize that if I squint, I can see straight through the window opposite mine, into the inside of Hugh’s trailer.
And what do I see? If you’ll forgive me drawing from the English dialect: bloody nothing. Hugh is indeed sitting like a statue—a windup tin soldier whose gears have run down—on the sofa in his trailer, so straight and motionless I suspect he’s trying to avoid wrinkling his costume.
A splash of guilt poisons my stomach. I generally lounge around my trailer in costume, heedless of potential wrinkles or snack crumbs. But I push that guilt aside—we can’t all be rigid automatons like Hugh Balfour.
I refocus on the tiny square of Hugh’s private space I can see from this angle. I see his script resting in his lap as he studies it, knees rising up over his coffee table like the legs of a praying mantis. Said table is meticulously arranged, every object on it straightened to a right angle: a mug of tea (positioned on a coaster), an old-ass book as thick as a hotel Bible, and his cell phone, lying face up as if he’s expecting a call.
Who is he waiting on? His agent, with the script for his next great role in hand, something with gravitas and cultural capital? That posh, surreally gorgeous girlfriend he almost certainly has? Or—a stab of jealousy—his brilliantly talented actress mother, who’s been booking steadily in this business for decades, and whose most recent high-profile role was that of an enigmatic matriarch on a Game of Thrones prequel.
I can’t stand this. I push myself out of my chair and lurch to the door of my trailer. For the thousandth millionth time, I wish I could call Mom right now. Vent about my unreasonable costar, about Twitter haters and my professional screwups, about how hard every day is without her.
Now, I don’t really have anyone to call. It’s not like I’ve always been totally friendless. I used to be quite cordial with my castmates on Chuck Brown—but I’m certainly not reaching out to them today. Then there were a few actresses I came up alongside in LA. But there was always that silent obstacle to closeness: the knowledge we were often going up against each other for the same parts. And the other fact … that the role of my lifelong best friend had been filled on the day I was born. I didn’t need to be inseparable with those women. I didn’t need to cultivate rituals, inside jokes, the natural ease of confiding deepest secrets without judgment. Not when I had Mom.
I’m knocked out of my funk when I hear a harried production assistant rap on Hugh’s trailer door outside, telling him to report back to the beauty department to restyle his wet hair before we resume filming.
My breath catches in my chest: the almost painful lightning strike of inspiration.
Hugh refuses to be in the beauty trailer with me due to his Method-acting process. It’s reached the point of pathologically deranged from my point of view now—what harm will come to him (or his precious acting craft) just because we sat in the same trailer?
And my character, Catherine Morland, is an incorrigible snoop. The kind of girl who creeps around a gothic manor that doesn’t belong to her, poking through wardrobes and looking for family secrets. Could Hugh blame me if I invoked Catherine’s spirit? He’s the one who wanted to go Method.
I dash from my trailer, slipping around the back of Hugh’s so he doesn’t see me rushing into the beauty trailer ahead of him. Once inside, I slip silently into the coat closet. Luckily, Lea, the hairstylist who works on getting Hugh’s curls to a state of onscreen perfection, has her back to me as I enter. Her Beats headphones are on—I happen to know Lea spends most of her free time listening to true-crime podcasts. I settle myself between a thick wool coat and a still-slick rain jacket, leaving the closet door open just a crack. And I wait for Hugh.
He arrives promptly. One would expect nothing less from a man whose mind is as dull and as regular as a train schedule. He sits down in the beauty chair (his back directly in front of the closet door—score), and Lea pulls out a wide-toothed comb to rearrange his dark curls back to perfection. Lea slips her headphones down around her neck, and I can hear the faint, tinny voice of her podcast’s narrator. “After her disappearance on April twenty-ninth, the only thing found of Casey Wilkerson were her panties.…”
Lea glances out a window I can’t see from this angle and says, “Looks like it’s clearing up. Maybe Dominic will get this scene taped today, after all.”
“Can’t get it over with soon enough,” Hugh grunts.
“Okay, Mr. Grumpy,” Lea says, voice light.
But Hugh isn’t listening to Lea. His phone, still gripped tight in his hand, starts ringing. He glances up at Lea and asks, “Do you mind?”
“Not at all!” Lea puts her headphones back on to give him a bit of privacy but continues fixing his curls as Hugh answers the call.
“Florence,” he says, putting the phone to his ear. “How’s everything?”
He’s silent for a long time, hanging on the caller’s every word. My stomach does a weird flip-flop. Florence. That must be his girlfriend.
“Right,” Hugh mutters, nodding along with the woman on the call. “Right. Well, we expected that, I suppose.” I can see the muscles of his shoulders tense. “No, I’m fully aware you can handle it. I just wish I was at home with you. Doing my part.”
He allows a long pause as Florence tells him something, before saying, “You know I’m not on social media. Nothing more vapid.”
I roll my eyes. He’s so pretentious.
“She what? All right, send me the link.”
Extended silence again as Hugh’s phone vibrates and he begins to scroll through whatever he’s been sent. I have a sinking feeling I know what it is.
“Jesus Christ, Floss,” Hugh exhales. “I mean, it was obvious she’s insufferably cheery and annoying, but being sacked is on another level. This job is my personal curse.”
All the blood curdles in my veins and my cheeks flush with rage. He hears one rumor and now he’s just going to assume the worst of me? And as a nice little bonus, he thinks I’m annoying? The man who refuses to act like a goddamn twenty-first-century civilian instead of a Regency gentleman thinks I’m the annoying one? I’m ready to push my way out of my closet hiding space and slap him around the head when I realize that a stunt like that might prove his point a bit … and so I stay hidden.
Hugh laughs darkly into his phone. “No, I will not ask her about it, Floss. If you want the gory little details, you’ll just have to keep glued to your gossip blogs. No—I’m not a snob. And I’ll tell you why: we’ve got enough going on without her complicating it further. Attach yourself to someone like Tess Bright, and the mess creeps in.”
Tears sting the corner of my eyes, and I brush them away roughly, furious with myself. I am losing my mind. This movie should be the high-water mark of my career, but here I am, crouched in the dark, listening to someone who hates me outline in detail exactly why he finds me so repugnant. And what’s worse—he might just be right. I need to get a grip.
Another long pause from Hugh, then a farewell. “Yes. Yes. Of course. I’ll call tonight after we wrap. Give them my love. Yes, talk later. We’ll work it all out. I’ll be home before you know it.”
When he hangs up, Lea lays down her comb and waves him out of the beauty trailer. “You’re all set!” Hugh stands, puts his top hat back on, and bids her adieu.
Copyright © 2025 by Christine Calella.