In the first draft of Collecting Zebras, Angel was going to date Christopher after she found out Jon was married. I changed my mind about that idea because – for reasons clear to anyone who has read the book – it was going to create too much awkwardness later on. But when I removed Christopher, the book became too short. I knew I needed another guy and I threw the name Riley into a scene where Angel is talking about the guys in her life BEFORE I decided who Riley was and how he was going to fit into the story. Because of that, I ended up writing his character as an inside joke to myself. This scene in particular reminds me how I added him to the story before I had a plan.
From the book:
The day finished without my face turning red and when I got home, I finally got my newest zebra positioned on the wreath. I opened my front door to hang it up and was startled to find Riley standing at the base of my porch steps. “Hello,” I said.
“Hi.”
“Can I help you?”
“Um…” He moved up the steps and gestured to the wreath in my hands. “What are you doing with that?”
“I… That’s a good question. I want to hang this on the front door here and I just realized I’ve never hung a wreath. I probably shouldn’t put a nail in this door and I think it might just fall off then anyway.” I held the wreath up to the door. There was a silver-toned door knocker. I tried to position the wreath so that it hung from the knocker but I could tell it would slip off before I even let go.
I turned back to Riley, who was watching me silently. “Any ideas?” I asked him.
He shrugged a bit. “Maybe you could use some string to tie it to the knocker?”
“Yeah, I could do that. I think that will work. Thanks.”
He nodded at me and turned as if to leave.
“Riley?”
He turned back to me.
“Did you simply have some premonition that I was about to have a wreath-hanging crisis or was there another reason you came over?”
“I, um…” He smiled as he shook his head. “It’s not important.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do you need to get into the attic for any reason?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not important. Goodnight.”
I still couldn’t figure out what was going on with Riley Iverson. And I was beginning to wonder if it even had anything to do with me.
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