May 7th, 2001, Oklahoma City: Thirty-two-year-old loan officer Andrea LeValle is saddened and confused by the fact that she has not seen her father since he passed away three weeks ago, LeValle’s friend and coworker, Ruth Garfield, reported today. Confiding in Garfield yesterday during their lunch break, Levalle reportedly lamented, “I just don’t understand why he hasn’t come to me, why I haven’t seen him.”
“It was really freaky,” Garfield, a twenty-nine-year-old Loan Assistant, said today from her cubicle in the Buncombe County National Bank’s Personal Loans department. “We were sitting there, eating our salads in the lounge and not really saying anything. Andrea’s been pretty quiet recently, and I’ve just tried to give her time, cause I know she’s depressed since her father died,” Garfield reported. “So, anyway, I’m just eating my salad, when Andrea looks up and tells me she’s upset because she hasn’t seen or heard from her dad. For a second I thought she was joking, but I saw that she wasn’t and a chill ran down my spine.”
Garfield claims to have known LeValle for three years and considers her, “...a good friend, normally pretty stable.” But she reported that their discussion yesterday left her very uneasy. “I don’t know whether to pity her for being a moron or be scared of her,” Garfield whispered. She continued, “Apparently, because of all these movies like Ghost and various TV shows and stuff, Andrea seriously thinks that people come back as ghosts and talk to their loved ones. She was all, ‘sometimes when I’m alone in my office and feeling down or need inspiration, I think how perfect it would be if Daddy showed up and gave me a hug or told me he was proud of me, but he never has’.”
LeValle reportedly is beginning to doubt both her father and her own faith. “She said she wondered if not seeing her father meant that everything she’d been told about Jesus and afterlife was a lie, or if it meant her father had gone to hell and couldn’t talk to her,” Garfield reported. Meanwhile, the meal-time discussion has left Garfield filled with doubts of her own. “I had no idea she was such a nutcase,” the twenty-nine-year-old professional admitted in a hushed voice. “I’ve got to come up with some new lunch plans now.”