Read Shirley, I Jest!: A Storied Life for Free Online Page A

for this key. When customers wished to gain access to their safety deposit box, I would walk with them into the vault. They would insert and turn their key; I would insert and turn the bank’s key, simple as that. First time up to bat, I escorted the customer into the vault to his safety deposit box. He inserted his key and turned it. I inserted the bank’s key and turned it. It immediately jammed and twisted in the lock. I tried pulling it out. No luck! It wouldn’t budge. I had the chain around my neck! It was a little too short for me to take off. The nice bank manager called some sort of security locksmith who would not, as it happened, be available for two hours! I apologized to the customer and the bank manager. I stood there guarding the twisted key, thinking about all my people waiting under the fluorescent lights for me to approve their credit. I saw my banking career fading away. And it did . Completely!
    I was kindly let go. I thought about trying to get my job back at IHOP. I was not going to show my face around the employment agency anymore. Edna still had her job in Hollywood and was doing okay until one Thursday morning when she found out her boyfriend, Kenny, was coming down from San Francisco to see her on Friday. She needed Friday and the weekend off and asked me to call in to work for her and tell them she was ill.
    “Ill with what?” I asked.
    “I don’t know. Something that keeps me out of work till Monday.”
    “Like what?”
    She thought for a moment, and then came up with, “Appendicitis.”
    “Really? Can’t that be serious?” I asked. She thought again.
    “Tell them I have to go to the hospital.”
    I called her boss and told her that Edna was suffering from appendicitis and had to go to the hospital. Her boss, a lovely lady, was sympathetic and asked where the office should send flowers. I was stymied. I looked at Edna. She was standing there but could not hear the other end of the conversation. She gave me a look as if to ask, What? What’s going on?
    I told the boss that flowers wouldn’t be necessary. The boss finished by telling me that everyone in the office just loved Edna and they would be thinking of her and praying for a quick recovery. I had a baaad feeling! Edna enjoyed a great weekend, and returned to work Monday morning where she was swiftly fired. To this day, any time this story is recalled, Edna and I wince and laugh at our stupidity.
    Soon after this, Edna’s luck turned around. She was offered a scholarship in a government-sponsored filmmaking workshop called New Communicators. She would be writing and directing her very own film. How exciting! I, on the other hand, caught the flu, which turned into bronchitis and had to return to my parents’ house in the Valley so my mother could take care of me.
    My mother was so happy to have me home. She could hardly wait to nurse me back to health. She was now working at the juice bar at Jack LaLanne’s European Health Spa in Reseda. She loved her job. People enjoyed her effervescent personality and her knowledge of health and preventative medicine.
    During the time I was back at home in Reseda, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. My mother had tried for some time to get him to see a doctor, secretly diagnosing him herself. This was no real surprise; my father had smoked three packs of unfiltered cigarettes every day for as long as I could remember. My mother finally convinced my father to see a doctor. He came home with the awful news. He had a mass on his left lung. He called a Baptist minister who came to the house to council and pray with him. After this he never drank again.
    Around the same time Edna called and asked me if I wanted to interview for New Communicators, the filmmaking workshop she was involved with. I jumped at the chance and said “Yes!” She said, “Good!” and took it upon herself to schedule the interview. I wasn’t sure if I had the right credentials for the workshop. I was an actress, not