Julie Hébert
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Picking Cherry Tomatoes in the Apocalypse By Julie Hébert

A STORY

BY JULIE HÉBERT

When I look up from my laptop I notice ash swirling in the air on the porch. I hear a distant siren signaling residents to evacuate. How long has that been ringing? It’s midafternoon. When I sat down here at eight in the morning I thought I had an hour or two of work. Seven hours later I’m still in my nightgown, and my neck, back, and right arm ache from being locked in position so long. I haven’t eaten or moved from this chair all day, but I finished the play, finally finding the right last line: “What are we waiting for?” I’m having trouble focusing my eyes. I blink repeatedly and look to the horizon—smoke flows over the mountaintop like a river undammed, ecstatic.

A little while later, when my husband races into the house, having just driven in from Los Angeles, I am undressing to get in the hot tub, which has a full view of the burning spectacle. I have a vague plan to submerge myself if the fire chooses this direction. He tells me people who tried that have been boiled to death. He’s been calling for hours, thinking I was trapped or the phone line had melted. (I’d unplugged it so I could work.) He tells me he had to argue with firemen and police who tried to stop him from driving into the fire zone. They blocked his way, threatened him. He told them, “Chase me, if you want, shoot me, but I’m going to get my wife,” and sped past them in his red Volkswagen Beetle, a burly tough guy in his teen-age-girl car, charging up the hill, finally on a mission worthy of his valor.

He is wound up and talking fast, insisting we leave immediately, but if this whole place is going to burn to the ground, I say… “I want to sit in the hot tub one last time.” I’ve been holding that soak in mind all day, pushing through the pain of my aching body to finish the play. I don’t want to leave yet, especially if I am never going to see this house again. We bought it after my brother died, a retreat from the public world of striving, a private, quiet place, a grieving house. I worked hard to find it, the right isolation, the right view, the right driving distance from home, something we could afford. I sacrificed to pay for it, fixed it up with treasures from junk stores and funky mementoes I’ve kept forever without knowing why. Here I understand why. This is my place, this is me, expressed in wood and cloth and trees and strange things that don’t make sense to anyone else. I can write here. Confounded, my husband indulges me. While I soak in the hot water watching wildfire snap at the darkening sky, he loads the cars with things he believes I’ll want, like my dead brother’s painting. Sensing I should move forward, I ease myself away from the mesmerizing fire, drift into the house. Standing in the shower I stare out the window at the spreading oaks, considering how long they’ve been alive, wondering if this will be their last day.

As I dress he tries to hurry me, but I won’t be rushed. The more upset he gets, the calmer I become, the slower I move. There’s always a fire, I think. I seem to be thickening like a pudding about to set. He’s asking what else I want him to put into our cars, but I look around this sanctified space filled with my sanctified things and it seems absurd to choose one over another: the armchair from my first play, my grandmother’s Extreme Unction kit, a notebook with animal sightings, my favorite gardening shirt…. Overflowing with memory, meaning, I can’t move.

My husband is now treating me like a mental patient incapable of making decisions for herself, dragging me out the front door. I want to lock it, but he says no; if firemen have to get in it’s better the door is unlocked. They won’t have to axe it down. I blink at him, imagining that, and wander toward the cars stuffed with belongings—books in laundry baskets, photos in soup pots, pillows jammed in crevices—refugee cars. He’s shouting directions, telling me to follow him. When he drove in, the emergency workers told him certain roads were closed, and now he’s telling me the way we have to go to get out. But I had heard all that, he’d said it before.

I know what I am going to do but I have to tell him delicately so he doesn’t freak out and physically force me into the car. He can’t make me drive, but he could abandon one car and drive off with me strapped down. “We need to pick the tomatoes.”

The look of exasperation on his face is laced with real concern for my sanity. I keep talking. “They’re ripe now; either they’ll be rotten when we get back or this is the last time I’ll have with my garden.” I see his mind calculating it will be faster to pick the tomatoes than fight me. I veer to the garden gate and ring the bell as I go in. Sacred ground. My grandfather Percy holds the center, a flourishing Salvia that blooms purple year-round; Great-grandpa Price stands outside the fence looking in, a Chinaberry tree who lost his mate too early; Papa Hébert is a wild climbing rose exploding white along two fence lines; José keeps watch behind him, a compact pine with feminine fanlike needles. My brother Mitch, a newly planted apple tree with seven white blossoms, bends over the wooden fence near the horse path. I put him there so years from now horses can bite into his fruit. The men always make me smile; the women are more complex.

Aunt Shirley had to be moved. I had her wild oregano in a shady herb corner with chocolate mint and lemon verbena, but she kept killing everything. When I gave in and planted her as an old-fashioned rose bush named after Lady Di, she blossomed and left me alone. Grandma Shepherd refused to be planted, and I realized her spirit is in the hummingbirds that dive and buzz and battle for territory, charming the guests.

Then there is Maman Hébert, Anita, impossible to please. I tried and tried and everything died. My sister came with a dream image of the old lady wearing a crown, and we prayed and planted coronets and tiara-like bushes and laughed and read poems and performed rituals and everything died. I replanted and dug and fertilized and watered, this and that and this and that, and everything died. I didn’t have the heart to tell my sister, so I replicated the dead plant she’d put in the ground with a fresh one before she came to visit. It died. I had the shadow of a thought on the periphery of my mind and threw agave pups in the dry dirt of my grandmother’s area. I didn’t water them, I didn’t do anything; they took root, growing fast and hard. I gently stroke the sharp spikes, a dangerous plant to last a hundred years, offering intoxicating mescal if anyone cares to work for it. Here she was at last: the matriarch, fierce, crowned.

The last thing Anita did before she died was walk through her vegetable garden. After a series of strokes and surgeries, she forced my father to get her out of the hospital and take her home. Wearing sensible pumps and a belted print rayon dress, her sutured neck splattered with bright orange mercurochrome, like flames on a hillside, she eased between the familiar rows of green beans, okra, and tomatoes. She could no longer speak, didn’t recognize her grandchildren, but she knew these plants. Touching them was her final act.

My poor husband strips cherry tomato vines by the dozen, uprooting whole plants, jamming them into a paper bag, keeping an eye on the wildfire roiling down the mountain in the distance. “Can we go now?! What are we waiting for?”

When I look up from my laptop I notice ash swirling in the air on the porch. I hear a distant siren signaling residents to evacuate. How long has that been ringing? It’s midafternoon. When I sat down here at eight in the morning I thought I had an hour or two of work. Seven hours later I’m still in my nightgown, and my neck, back, and right arm ache from being locked in position so long. I haven’t eaten or moved from this chair all day, but I finished the play, finally finding the right last line: “What are we waiting for?” I’m having trouble focusing my eyes. I blink repeatedly and look to the horizon—smoke flows over the mountaintop like a river undammed, ecstatic.

A little while later, when my husband races into the house, having just driven in from Los Angeles, I am undressing to get in the hot tub, which has a full view of the burning spectacle. I have a vague plan to submerge myself if the fire chooses this direction. He tells me people who tried that have been boiled to death. He’s been calling for hours, thinking I was trapped or the phone line had melted. (I’d unplugged it so I could work.) He tells me he had to argue with firemen and police who tried to stop him from driving into the fire zone. They blocked his way, threatened him. He told them, “Chase me, if you want, shoot me, but I’m going to get my wife,” and sped past them in his red Volkswagen Beetle, a burly tough guy in his teen-age-girl car, charging up the hill, finally on a mission worthy of his valor.

He is wound up and talking fast, insisting we leave immediately, but if this whole place is going to burn to the ground, I say… “I want to sit in the hot tub one last time.” I’ve been holding that soak in mind all day, pushing through the pain of my aching body to finish the play. I don’t want to leave yet, especially if I am never going to see this house again. We bought it after my brother died, a retreat from the public world of striving, a private, quiet place, a grieving house. I worked hard to find it, the right isolation, the right view, the right driving distance from home, something we could afford. I sacrificed to pay for it, fixed it up with treasures from junk stores and funky mementoes I’ve kept forever without knowing why. Here I understand why. This is my place, this is me, expressed in wood and cloth and trees and strange things that don’t make sense to anyone else. I can write here. Confounded, my husband indulges me. While I soak in the hot water watching wildfire snap at the darkening sky, he loads the cars with things he believes I’ll want, like my dead brother’s painting. Sensing I should move forward, I ease myself away from the mesmerizing fire, drift into the house. Standing in the shower I stare out the window at the spreading oaks, considering how long they’ve been alive, wondering if this will be their last day.

As I dress he tries to hurry me, but I won’t be rushed. The more upset he gets, the calmer I become, the slower I move. There’s always a fire, I think. I seem to be thickening like a pudding about to set. He’s asking what else I want him to put into our cars, but I look around this sanctified space filled with my sanctified things and it seems absurd to choose one over another: the armchair from my first play, my grandmother’s Extreme Unction kit, a notebook with animal sightings, my favorite gardening shirt…. Overflowing with memory, meaning, I can’t move.

My husband is now treating me like a mental patient incapable of making decisions for herself, dragging me out the front door. I want to lock it, but he says no; if firemen have to get in it’s better the door is unlocked. They won’t have to axe it down. I blink at him, imagining that, and wander toward the cars stuffed with belongings—books in laundry baskets, photos in soup pots, pillows jammed in crevices—refugee cars. He’s shouting directions, telling me to follow him. When he drove in, the emergency workers told him certain roads were closed, and now he’s telling me the way we have to go to get out. But I had heard all that, he’d said it before.

I know what I am going to do but I have to tell him delicately so he doesn’t freak out and physically force me into the car. He can’t make me drive, but he could abandon one car and drive off with me strapped down. “We need to pick the tomatoes.”

The look of exasperation on his face is laced with real concern for my sanity. I keep talking. “They’re ripe now; either they’ll be rotten when we get back or this is the last time I’ll have with my garden.” I see his mind calculating it will be faster to pick the tomatoes than fight me. I veer to the garden gate and ring the bell as I go in. Sacred ground. My grandfather Percy holds the center, a flourishing Salvia that blooms purple year-round; Great-grandpa Price stands outside the fence looking in, a Chinaberry tree who lost his mate too early; Papa Hébert is a wild climbing rose exploding white along two fence lines; José keeps watch behind him, a compact pine with feminine fanlike needles. My brother Mitch, a newly planted apple tree with seven white blossoms, bends over the wooden fence near the horse path. I put him there so years from now horses can bite into his fruit. The men always make me smile; the women are more complex.

Aunt Shirley had to be moved. I had her wild oregano in a shady herb corner with chocolate mint and lemon verbena, but she kept killing everything. When I gave in and planted her as an old-fashioned rose bush named after Lady Di, she blossomed and left me alone. Grandma Shepherd refused to be planted, and I realized her spirit is in the hummingbirds that dive and buzz and battle for territory, charming the guests.

Then there is Maman Hébert, Anita, impossible to please. I tried and tried and everything died. My sister came with a dream image of the old lady wearing a crown, and we prayed and planted coronets and tiara-like bushes and laughed and read poems and performed rituals and everything died. I replanted and dug and fertilized and watered, this and that and this and that, and everything died. I didn’t have the heart to tell my sister, so I replicated the dead plant she’d put in the ground with a fresh one before she came to visit. It died. I had the shadow of a thought on the periphery of my mind and threw agave pups in the dry dirt of my grandmother’s area. I didn’t water them, I didn’t do anything; they took root, growing fast and hard. I gently stroke the sharp spikes, a dangerous plant to last a hundred years, offering intoxicating mescal if anyone cares to work for it. Here she was at last: the matriarch, fierce, crowned.

The last thing Anita did before she died was walk through her vegetable garden. After a series of strokes and surgeries, she forced my father to get her out of the hospital and take her home. Wearing sensible pumps and a belted print rayon dress, her sutured neck splattered with bright orange mercurochrome, like flames on a hillside, she eased between the familiar rows of green beans, okra, and tomatoes. She could no longer speak, didn’t recognize her grandchildren, but she knew these plants. Touching them was her final act.

My poor husband strips cherry tomato vines by the dozen, uprooting whole plants, jamming them into a paper bag, keeping an eye on the wildfire roiling down the mountain in the distance. “Can we go now?! What are we waiting for?”

Naked in the River

A STORY

BY JULIE HÉBERT

ODILE AUCOIN and Jean-Francois LeBlanc took a steamboat down Bayou Teche in 1923 to the river town of Cours D’eau, Louisiana, to make their fortune together, exchanging a hardscrabble rural life for opportunities only a boomtown could offer.

He had a third-grade education, she’d made it through seventh. She carried a carefully folded spelling certificate congratulating her on a perfect score, in case it might help her get a job. They’d been married in the parish clerk’s office in St. Martinville before eloping on the steamboat Amy Hewes (with a dancehall onboard), planning a church wedding once they’d settled and started making money. Odile was dark-haired, wide-faced, pretty in her way, with lively eyes that didn’t miss a thing. Jean-Francois was five-foot-eleven, broad-shouldered, good-looking, and genial. He always had a harmonica in his pocket and was a world-class whistler. Odile was the willful one. She had plans. She was nineteen. Jean Francois had just turned twenty-six. They spoke nuanced French with each other, broken English to the outside world. 

Odile took a job at a seafood warehouse on Front Street down by the river, picking crabs for ten cents a pound, leaving her fingers bloody from the sharp shells and swollen from the wetness. She worked faster than most to make enough to enroll in an English grammar class once a week at the Marcel School for adults, intent on getting her high school diploma. Jean-Francois worked at the shell crusher, hauling fifty-pound bags of pulverized oyster shells used for covering roads and parking lots, a modern improvement over dirt paths, which turned to muddy ruts in the Louisiana rain. The heavy work didn’t bother Jean-Francois, who had been working hard for as long as he could remember. His mother died in childbirth when he was two years old, and his father remarried soon after. Jean-Francois was the oldest of a brood of half brothers and sisters he helped raise. He could cook, quiet a baby, work a cane field or build anything you wanted, whistling all the while. Work didn’t bother Jean-Francois, it was expected, he did it without complaint; it was the evenings he looked forward to.

Jean-Francois liked to drink. It was Prohibition times, but that meant almost nothing in south Louisiana. New Orleans was dubbed the “liquor capital of America,” but the small towns along the coast were even more soaked in alcohol. Who was going to enforce the Noble Cause? No one. Many a fortune was made running rum and bootleg whiskey through the web of bayous and backwaters filtering to the Gulf of Mexico. There was so much more liquor in south Louisiana after Prohibition, the price of a drink went down. Which was fine with Jean-Francois. 

Odile and Jean-Francois rented a shotgun house on a bend of River Road between the railroad tracks and the graveyard. Every room was tiny, the whole house was the size of one good-sized room, but it was a miracle to them, having both grown up with a horde of siblings, sharing beds, sharing clothes, sharing everything. This was theirs and theirs alone—front room, kitchen, bedroom, screened washing porch with wooden steps leading to a scraggly back yard with an outhouse. Odile had plans for that yard, a vegetable garden to feed them through hard times.

The view from their back door was of the old cemetery, which had graves going back before the Civil War, even though the town was less than twenty years old. Jean-Francois liked to sit on the back steps with his black coffee before work, watching the rising sun throw shadows on the tombstones. The cemetery was here first, he thought, and it’ll outlast the town. He imagined himself and Odile lying in the dirt there, side by side through eternity.

One warm Friday night in November Jean-Francois gets hold of a gallon of gin and invites his buddy Clayton from the shell crusher over to drink it with him and Odile. Clayton, tall and skinny, is from north Louisiana, having recently moved to Cours D’eau, like so many others, looking for a life beyond the farm.

After knocking off, the guys stop at the ice house to buy a chunk of ice, then hump it fast to River Road to get started on the gin before the ice melts. It’s already dark with a rising three-quarter moon as they hurry along the shortcut through the old graveyard when Jean-Francois shouts, “Fais nous?” stopping to suck the dripping ice and take a quick swig of gin. Clayton laughs and does the same as Jean-Francois flops onto the wide flat tombstone of the Morgan family. He notes they’re in the rich Protestant section, French Catholics only allowed at night or if they’re digging graves. 

Clayton wants to know, “Where the poor people at?”

Jean-Francois points to a side area under a cluster of oak trees.

“Least we’re better off than the coloreds, who barely get headstones. But the Jews—look—they got a little iron fence around them. Like they wanna be apart from everybody.”

Clayton starts to urinate on the graves of the wealthy, but Jean Francois stops him. “Why piss off God?”—making a play on the word piss that flies right over Clayton’s head.

When they get to the house, Odile is playing cards at the kitchen table with a new acquaintance, Susan Ann Price. Both girls squeal when they see the gin. Odile takes the dripping ice, discreetly pressing her puffy, reddened fingers onto the frozen chunk for relief.

Odile introduces Susan Ann as her English teacher from the Marcel School. Jean-Francois teases his wife—in French—she’s always trying to move up in the world with fancy friends, but he likes her like she is. He cups her ass, tugging her in for a kiss and a playful bite on her nose. Without letting go of his bride he switches to English, “Nice to meet you, Susan Ann. This my buddy Clayton.”

Clayton mumbles hello, digging his boot at a tear in the grungy flowered linoleum, stealing looks at Susan Ann’s ample curves. She takes the measure of long, tall Clayton, likes what she sees, straightens her back a little to show off her bosom. 

With a worn wood-handled ice pick, Odile chips ice into mismatched jelly jars and Jean-Francois pours the gin. The ancient window fan rattles away, not giving much of a breeze on this hot night.

Three drinks later Clayton is sitting in his underwear, the two women are down to their rayon slips, bras, and panties, and Jean Francois is removing his shirt, having just lost a hand of strip poker on purpose so as not to be the only one at the table still dressed. The gin is only half gone.

Whistling, Jean-Francois deals another hand but Clayton looks scared—he doesn’t have a lot left to bet—and Susan Ann nervously asks if her purse counts as something she can wager? 

Clayton pushes the cards away. “Maybe I better . . .”

But Odile is not ready for the night to be over.

“It’s too hot in here. This old fan don’t cool off much. Let’s go outside.”

Susan Ann doesn’t want Clayton to leave but – “Not like this!” She covers her chest with her hands. 

Odile stands, stretching in front of the fan, arms lifted, eyes closed, pale-pink slip sticky with sweat at her midriff. Jean Francois strokes her hip. Clayton tries not to look. Odile opens her eyes, reassures Susan Ann, “We know a place.” 

It’s quiet on the slow-moving river, the waxing moon casting shadows through the willows clustered on the muddy banks at the bend where a pirogue lays hidden in high grass a few feet from a small rough-hewn dock. Whispering cuts the humid night air as the couples cross the railroad tracks, loping down the embankment, headed for the water. Odile leads the way, Jean Francois carries the gin, chasing her.

Having redressed for the trip across the road, Odile pulls her dress over her head and flings it in Jean-Francois’s direction. She darts away, stripping as she goes, taunting Jean-Francois, who makes no real effort to catch her, preferring to see her running naked in moonlight.

Clayton and Susan Ann bring up the rear, learning the rules of this wild night as they go—he pretends to chase her, she escapes with a laugh.

Once Odile reaches the dock she shimmies up the four-foot post at the end, posing nude, high above the river, waiting for the others. Having shed her poor-girl rags, she is restored to the riches of her healthy nineteen-year old body—firm breasts, flat stomach, strong legs, a shield of beauty connecting her to goddesses of old. She howls.

Jean-Francois lunges to silence her—she dives into the river.

He shrugs off his clothes, slugs back the gin, and follows her into the black water.

Susan Ann and Clayton arrive at the dock, panting. He grabs her by the waist, kisses her. She pulls away, he holds on. Listening to the thrashing lovers in the water, tapping desire she didn’t know she had, Susan Ann Price unbuttons her dress—for the second time that night. Never taking his eyes off her, Clayton gets out of his clothes. Susan Ann’s breasts are fuller than Odile’s, and when she removes her bra the release takes Clayton’s breath. He reaches for her, but she flits away to the end of the dock. Nowhere to go but into the dark muddy river . . . Susan Ann hesitates. 

“How deep is it?”

“ ‘Chafalaya’s pretty deep, ya know, the paddleboat’s come through. We only thirteen miles to the Gulf.”

“But I mean right here. Will I touch bottom? Will it be muddy?”

“Let’s find out.” He eases her toward the water.

“No, don’t! I don’t want to.”

“Okay. It’s okay, ya know, whatever you want.”

Something grabs Susan Ann’s ankle—she screams and lurches into Clayton’s arms. Jean-Francois pops up in the water. “Jump in, mes amis. What you waitin’ for?”

Susan Ann tries to regain herself. “You scared the devil out of me!”

Odile swims over, hangs on Jean-Francois’s neck. “Feels good, ya’ll—c’mon.”

“It’s okay, Susan Ann. It’s just fun.” Clayton runs a finger along her face, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, a gesture somehow more intimate than all the nudity of the evening. It’s too much.

Susan Ann, suddenly sober, sees herself like her mother and father would, like her pastor would—naked, outside, cavorting with low-class strangers by a dirty river. Shocked at herself and deeply ashamed, she pulls away from Clayton, covering her body with her hands as best she can. “I need to go.” 

“I dare you!”

Odile pushes herself up on Jean-Francois’ shoulders, shouting into the night, “I dare you, Susan Ann Price!”

Susan Ann so wants to be that girl—daring, free, divinely sensual. She’s twenty-two years old and senses she will never be more beautiful or more desired than she is at this moment. Clayton reaches a hand to her—Susan Ann takes it—he yanks her into his arms, leaping out over the water, yowling. Odile and Jean Francois whoop in celebration as the water around them explodes.

They swim and tease and talk as the moon crosses the inky sky. When they hear a car on River Road, they float to the cover of the willow trees, but when the 11:18 Southern Pacific rumbles through on the nearby railroad tracks they hoot and holler, and the women bob up to flash their breasts. Jean-Francois passes the bottle as they tread water, finishing the warm gin as the church bell tolls the midnight hour. Twelve peals.

They dress without looking at one another. Clayton asks if he can escort Susan Ann home, but she has missed the last ferry to Morgan City. Odile invites her to spend the night in their front room.

Back at the house Odile makes up a pallet of quilts for Susan Ann, suggesting the coolest place to sleep is under the window fan in the kitchen, but if she prefers the front room, that’s fine. Clayton keeps trying to say goodnight but never quite makes it out the door.

Jean-Francois and Odile say they always sit on the back steps for a while before going to bed, a white lie to give the new lovers privacy. Clayton shoots Jean-Francois a grateful look; Susan Ann’s eyelids flutter as she stares at the floor.

Odile and Jean-Francois find crackers and a tin of Vienna sausages and disappear out the back door, leaving Susan Ann and Clayton alone in the house.

Odile sits one step below Jean-Francois, leaning into him, feeding him, kissing him upside down with Vienna sausage breath. As their eyes accustom to the dark, shapes appear in the shadowy graveyard—mossy trees, tombs, crucifixes, sorrowful angels. The smell of rain is in the air. They whisper in French. After she gets her high school diploma from the Marcel School she’ll get a fancy job—maybe in an office. He likes that idea, she can support him in style. Meanwhile, he heard he can make more money as a cook on a tugboat, but it’ll mean being away from her.

Staring at the graveyard Odile tells him, “Sacrifier maintenant pour l’avenir.” Sacrifice now for the future. She wants to get married in the Church, she wants to have lots of babies. But first they have to save—and learn to speak good English.

“Parle l’anglais,” she insists.

He indulges her, as always. “I’m a build us a house. Red house.”

“Wit’ a porch. An’ a vegetable garden.”

“Et le chat.”

“What we need a car for?” 

“A car—wit’ a radio. For drivin’ an’ singin’. I’m a build a playhouse pour les enfants an’ a work shed pour moi. What you want, for your special room?”

“Sewing room.”

“All right then, c’est bon, ma chere, c’est bon.”

“But first we got to sacrifice.”

It starts to rain, lightly, a drizzle. Odile stands, tilting her head back, opening her mouth to the heavens. Jean-Francois grabs his spirited girl and they sneak silently back into their tiny rented house and their rickety borrowed bed, making love quietly with the smell of river in her hair. 

In the morning Susan Ann and Clayton are gone, the quilts from the pallet neatly folded. That afternoon Odile and Jean Francois break ground on their backyard vegetable garden.

At Sunday Mass Alida Jumonville snubs Odile, not responding to her greeting, walking away as if she hasn’t seen her.

On Monday at work none of the girls talk to Odile. They barely look at her except to sneak sly glances and catch each other’s eyes with knowing looks. Odile corners her friend Marie.

“What’s going on, anh? How come nobody’s talking to me?”

Marie, a skinny, nervous girl, pretends not to know but has a frantic look as if she’s scared to be seen with Odile, as if she might catch something from her. 

Over an early supper Odile tries to figure it out with Jean Francois, who laughs it off. “Women always carrying on. Ignore it, it’ll go away.”

But when she shows up for her class that night at the Marcel School she is told by the principal she is no longer a student there. They do not allow loose women into their classes. Odile protests, outraged. “What you talkin’ about? I’m a good Catholic, from a good family!”

The principal raises his eyebrows. “I understand you are living in sin, hosting single men in your rent house on River Road. You’re a bad influence on our students, and you are no longer welcome here.”

He attempts to shut the door, but Odile sticks her foot in it.

“That’s a lie! Who says that?”

“Did you swim naked in the river with two men? Did two men spend the night with you after that? Is that a lie?”

Behind him Odile sees Susan Ann peeking out of her classroom, too curious to stay hidden. Under Susan Ann’s glare of defiance Odile sees fear—fear Odile will fight back, expose the truth of their sweet, wild night, smear Susan Ann’s reputation, stain her virginity, ruin her chances.

Odile smells linseed oil rising from the polished oak floor, the cleanest floor she’s ever seen. She loves walking to her class, the click of her shoes echoing in the wide hall like she’s going somewhere. 

Odile realizes—who would believe me?—a barely literate Cajun girl not married in the Church over upstanding Susan Ann Price of Morgan City?

She says, “Susan Ann . . .” beginning an appeal.

Susan Ann shakes her head, one sharp move, and she’s gone. The principal pulls the school door shut, leaving Odile on the steps outside, burning with shame.

Susan Ann will leave this job to teach elementary school on the good side of the river, away from the rough trade of boomtown Cours D’eau. Alone in her bed at night she will revisit, time and again, Clayton’s body clasping her, skin on skin, flying through the air, splashing into the cold dark wet.

Odile walks home in twilight, breathing in muddy river air, eyes wandering downstream with the currents past oaks and willows, winding to the Gulf. In the far reaches of her soul the extinction of her dream makes room for reality. But time enough for that. Tonight she sorrows. 

Switchblade Sisters Podcast on Blood Simple

 

Do you love the Coen Brothers’ first film, BLOOD SIMPLE, like I do? I’ve seen this movie so many times— I’m crazy about it. When film critic April Wolfe invited me to do a Switchblade Sisters podcast, talking about a genre film that’s influenced my own work as a director— there was only one choice. I loved digging into what makes the movie great, why it stays with you, and how it affected me as I was figuring out film directing. (I admit to stealing a shot from Blood Simple on my first TV directing job.) April did her homework and I learned some fascinating things about the making of the movie that I didn’t know.

We also got onto the subject of working with amazing actors like Francis McDormand and Felicity Huffman. (I’m not embarrassed to say I gushed a little… but when you’re dealing with talent like that, damn.)

Take a listen on the Switchblade Sisters Apple Podcasts feed or the Maximum Fun website (HERE) and let me know what you think.

UCross Residency

 

I spent the month of November on a writing retreat at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming..(www.ucrossfoundation.org) and my oh my what a wonderful place. It’s a thousand acre working ranch that supports residencies for writers and visual artists. They offer a studio, meals and uninterrupted time to work on the project of your choice. Heaven.

I worked in the Marvelous Studio and it was. I forgot to sign the guestbook, but was very impressed by the other writers who wrote notes there, having worked in this studio before me. I think their hovering spirits helped me focus in the most creative and fruitful way I’ve experienced in years.

I worked at a standing desk overlooking a field of frozen grass, old bent trees, and herds of deer, antelope and cows. As always, ever-changing nature— weather, animals— never fails to inspire. It snowed, it rained, it was so sunny I had to close the blinds… and it was rutting season so I saw a lot of deer frolicking and chasing each other, hopping fences like you and I take steps.

The wind was my companion throughout and even made it into the play I was writing.

I finished a draft of a play called Drunk at the Base of the Bodhi Tree. It was started in a silent retreat with Erik Ehn in June in Bolinas, and I definitely owe him and the other silent retreatants a debt of gratitude. The ground for the play was turned there and the seeds planted; in November, with the deep attention made possible at Ucross, the first draft was completed. First new play in several years.

I also started a second play, working title— Just Curious. This one is a science story and will require some research, but I hope to get a draft out later this year.

I also (miracle!) worked on a few prose pieces, including an essay called I Can’t Close My Mouth, which I’m submitting for publication now, about the long-term effects of sexual assault and the obstacles I’ve faced in trying to tell those stories in television from a female point-of-view.

All said, it was the most productive time I’ve had as a writer in many years and I could not be more grateful to Ucross and to Mame Hunt and Roberta Levitow for introducing me there. BTW— I’m now working at home at my new standing desk! Fingers crossed to keep the productivity going…

‘The Smartest Person in the Room’ Podcast

Laura Tremaine, host of  the podcast The Smartest Person in the Room, interviews Julie Hébert about her career in theatre, film and television. Julie takes us on an inspiring journey from small town Louisiana to her current position as Executive Producer/Writer/ Director on the award-winning ABC series American Crime.

We get a glimpse of the dynamics in the Writer’s Room of a television drama and the responsibilities writers feel to their audiences. Julie discusses being a woman in a male-dominated industry and why it’s important for directors to wear boots. We also get a sneak-peek into current and future projects.

Laura leads a fascinating conversation giving an inside view into the workings of Hollywood and the life of a free-lance writer/director.

Click here to listen to Julie’s interview

Check out more from Laura’s Podcast here

 

 

Julie Moderates “Good Girls Revolt”

Hi friends! I’m delighted to be moderating a discussion Friday night November 11th with Dana Calvo, Jeanine Oppewall and Cynthia Pusheck, creators of the new Amazon show Good Girls Revolt. We’ll talk after a screening of their pilot at the beautiful Wilshire-Ebell Theater. I’d love to see you there. Come and get some inspiration from this true story of women banding together to create change.

By the way, this is now a FREE event!

For ticket information go to http://ebelleventtickets.com/

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Check out the trailer here:

Directing American Crime, Season Three

Hey ya’ll, I just finished directing the second episode of this season’s American Crime, written by the almighty John Ridley and involving a conflagration pulled off with the help of my old buddy Tom Bellissimo. The episode will air in January. So loved working with our returning ensemble… Felicity Huffman, Regina King, Richard Cabral, Benito Martinez, Connor Jessup… and with our stellar new cast… Cherry Jones, Sandra Oh, Dallas Roberts and Tim DeKay. A real honor.

 

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NEW LWSD! backyard video shoot

We completed our latest Look What She Did! shoot at the end of August in Julie’s backyard (and two in the front yard– we got wild). Our all-gal crew was amazing (!) and we filmed nine interviews in just one weekend, our biggest shoot ever. Two incredible, inspiring days filled with crazy-great women talking about other crazy-great women. Stay tuned, we’ll be posting new videos soon.

Here are our newest co-conspirators:

Writer/director Julliette Carrillo on writer/director Jo Anne Akalaitis

Writer/director Julliette Carrillo on writer/director Jo Anne Akalaitis

Theater Critic Sylvie Drake on the mind-blowing Queen Hatshepsut of Eqypt

Theater Critic Sylvie Drake on the mind-blowing Queen Hatshepsut of Eqypt

Screenwriter Anna Thomas on anthropologist Carobeth Laird

Screenwriter Anna Thomas on anthropologist Carobeth Laird

Documentary filmmaker Grace Lee on Civil Rights activist Grace Lee Boggs

Documentary filmmaker Grace Lee on Civil Rights activist Grace Lee Boggs

Filmmaker Tamar Halpem on journalist Nellie Bly

Filmmaker Tamar Halpem on journalist Nellie Bly

Actress Elisa Bocanegra on playwright Maria Irene Fornes

Actress Elisa Bocanegra on playwright Maria Irene Fornes

Downtown Women’s Shelter communications director Ann-Sophie Morisette on homeless advocate Mollie Lowery

Downtown Women’s Shelter communications director Ann-Sophie Morisette on homeless advocate Mollie Lowery

Musician/writer April Wolfe on badass aviator Pancho Barnes (yes, she’s a woman…)

Musician/writer April Wolfe on badass aviator Pancho Barnes (yes, she’s a woman…)

Playwright Laural Meade on suffragette Sara Bard Field

Playwright Laural Meade on suffragette Sara Bard Field

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had an absolute blast and can’t wait to show you these new stories! Keep an eye out for the new ones but meanwhile check out our other videos at http://lookwhatshedid.com/index.php/videos/

Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check out our Instagram. Please tell us, who is YOUR astonishing woman?

American Crime goes to the Emmys… and has a peanut butter sandwich!
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PB&Js courtesy of Jimmy Kimmel’s Mom

Okay, second visit to the Emmys– way more relaxed. We knew our way around this time, starting with driving up Pico instead of Olympic to get there, which saved us at least 20 minutes of waiting in a line of cars. Good start. We also knew to eat a little before we left, AND I brought almonds in my purse in case we became desperate. Turns out this was unnecessary because not only did they have mini-burgers in the lounge when we arrived (Kenn had one and said they were good) in the middle of the broadcast Jimmy Kimmel sent around lunch sacks from his mom filled with peanut butter and jam sandwiches, a cookie, an apple and a juice box. By that time everyone really was hungry and we — along with 7000 of our over-dressed colleagues — scarfed it up. It was a kick to see elegant men in their tuxedos and women dripping in diamonds licking their fingers and enjoying the pbj’s. One of my favorite moments. Thanks Jimmy’s mom.

Walking thJulieHredcarpete red carpet was more chill this time, too, despite the 100 degree heat because they’d erected a cover and hedges and had water available and all the folks guiding us along were cheery and helpful. They did a great job of moving thousands of socializing people into place for an on-time start to a live broadcast. Not easy and they did it with grace. I don’t know if it was aired on the Emmy broadcast, but before the show started three kids from Stranger Things sang and danced Uptown Funk and I LOVED it. They were adorable and fun and super-talented. Glad I was in my seat ahead of time to see it.

I’m pretty bad at recognizing famous people and I kept saying to Kenn: Look, that’s so-and-so! and he’d say: No, it isn’t.  And he was right. I mis-identified several seat-fillers but thank god I didn’t request their autographs. Meanwhile, I was so delighted to see some of my favorite people up on the big screen for their nominations, including Lili Taylor, Felicity Huffman, Lesli Linka Glatter, Lily Tomlin and many more. When Lily Tomlin didn’t win, you could see her mouth the words “Oh, damn it!” I love her. Also absolutely loved that Susanne Bier won best director for a limited series. She is a phenomenal director and it makes me so happy for women of talent to be recognized. Then, of course, our own Regina King won best supporting actress in a limited series for American Crime, and we leapt from our seats with tears in our eyes. Okay, Michael McDonald and I did, not Kenn, but he was proud of her, too. Turns out Regina’s win was the ONLY win of the night for anyone from broadcast television. Gave us a little lift.

Afterwards,GovBall we tromped over to the Governor’s Ball (my feet in stiletto heels were beginning to scream at this point… ah, vanity…) but when we walked in– the decor was breathtaking. Kenn says it’s like the most over-the-top high school prom you can imagine. Last year it felt like we’d been catapulted out into the universe and this year it was more Hobbit-like with lush, draped greenery GovernorsBall
hanging from the fifty-foot ceiling. An elevated, wedding-cake-like platform in the middle held an orchestra and singers who keep shifting through the evening. Magical.

 

We found ourJulieemmys2016 table then wandered around talking to friends and colleagues. Very happy to see some of our brilliant Season Two cast including Joey Pollari, Elvis Nolasco and Connor Jessup, as well as Ms. Cherry Jones, who will be joining us for Season Three. Damn, it’s fun to know amazingly talented people who are all such sweethearts.

Dinner was yummy and at our table we ate, drank and chatted with writer-producers Diana Son and Keith Huff and his wife Georgette, as well as our AD Kayse Goodell. Really lovely.

And we were out– except for the long walk back to the valet. I admit removing the stilettos and enjoying the red carpet in bare feet! Goodbye 2016 Emmys.

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Regina King accepting her Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress

Me, Cherry Jones, and Kayse Goodell

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Diana Son, Kayse Goodell, and me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grand Isle, Louisiana

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On Mother’s Day weekend the Hebert clan gathered on Grand Isle, Louisiana for a little family reunion. My family has been coming to this funky beach town on the Gulf of Mexico for over a hundred years. We have photos of our maternal great-grandparents there before 1920. Our paternal grandfather built a camp on the island in the forties and we went there every summer to play on the beach, fish, boil crabs and get eaten up by mosquitoes. One of my very favorite memories is sleeping underneath the big window fan on the porch, to the sound of the waves. This is the island Kate Chopin wrote about in The Awakening, first point of landfall for many hurricanes. Since the ’60’s it’s been inundated by the oil industry; Grand Isle was one of the areas most affected by the BP oil spill. Happy to say it’s rebounded– beautiful, clean and thriving with migrating birds, wildlife and sea creatures once again. We watched porpoises frolicking in the breakers every morning.

My two brothers and my sister came with their extended families and we were able to introduce our own little 16-month old Mari to her many cousins. When we were leaving she shocked us all by saying “Bye, ya’ll.” Her first Southernism! Turns out she loved the warm Gulf waters as much as we do.

We ate like Cajun royalty– a shrimp boil, a crawfish boil, a fish fry, charbroiled oysters and a homemade chicken enchilada dinner (courtesy of island fishing guide and hostess extraordinaire Anne Smith, who also brought kayaks and lots of beach toys.) We also devoured shrimp and oyster po-boys from the Starfish Diner. And we drank, yes, you bet (including a pitcher of the notorious Red Knot concocted by good-timer Lecta Bourgeois). A flaming great time was had by all– oh did I mention the bonfire on the beach and the non-stop dancing? A beautiful long weekend. We have all vowed to continue to get together now that Mom, Dad and Mitch are gone, and times like this one on Grand Isle make it easy to keep that promise. One of the best parts is seeing all the young cousins playing and getting to know each other. Love those kids.

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