Character Sketch
Kayla would die of embarrassment if anyone caught her reading an issue from her enormous stash of Superman comics, some of them published in the early 60s. It’s definitely not 26-year-old reading material. No way would she admit even to her cat, if she still had one, that Lois Lane was her idol or that her own Superman was a frequent fantasy.
She would be somewhat redeemed if that person browsed through her bookshelf and noticed a few classics by Dickens, a complete collection of Arthur Conan Doyle novels and the textbooks from her journalism courses. She could recite the titles, plots, setting and characters from every Sherlock Holms story Doyle ever wrote. Her phenomenal memory, attention to detail, curiosity, discipline and determination brought her to the top of her graduating class. Three years after landing her first newsroom job, she was the senior journalist; the editor assigned to her the highest profile stories.
When she started martial arts training a year ago, she replaced cigarettes with black Twizzlers that she cut in half and kept in a mug on her desk both at home and in the newsroom. The indigo cup at home sported the caption: “As I suspected, I was right all along”. The violet one at work was unadorned. She flirted with a vegetarian diet but refused to go vegan; giving up key lime Greek yogurt was not an option.
With no siblings or extended family, she was close to her mom who lived in Cowichan Bay where she was raised. Her mom remained a committed Christian; Kayla was committed only to finding the truth in every case she wrote headlines for; she leaned more toward Buddhism than to the useless, heartless God who let her dad die of cancer when she was 10 despite her daily fervent prayers for his healing. She kept to a rather austere lifestyle which enabled her to send a generous monthly stipend to her mom every month.
Though she refrained from even the slightest degree of intimacy with people, she was extremely sensitive and intuitive to their emotions, tone of voice and gestures. She could detect deception and often discerned people’s motives more clearly than they did themselves; she could have excelled as either a gambler or diplomat since none of her own thoughts or emotions could be discerned by others.
Her thick wavy auburn hair was woven in a french braid for the newsroom and for workouts and bound in a ponytail swaying between her shoulder blades when chilling at home. In memory of her dad, she always wore something purple; for work she wore purple suede boots, either a black or grey calf-length slit skirt and a tweed blazer. Her blouses were the same style, buttoned to the neck in white or black. She carried a lilac purse and matching umbrella; you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of days with no sudden rain in Vancouver. The unpredictable showers annoyed her; millenials strolling the busy downtown sidewalks with their eyes glued to their cellphones and jostling those in their path strongly tempted her to deal karate chops to their wrists.
At 5’3’ with a muscular build and cool demeanor Kayla exuded a no-nonsense attitude, occasionally relieved by humorous one-liners that seemed especially amusing, being completely unexpected. Though liked and respected by her colleagues, none of them considered themselves her friends; only Matthew, the graphic artist made any effort to bring their relationship beyond the newsroom. She thwarted his efforts with smiles and evasive answers.
