If I had two minutes in a room with a publisher to prove my talent as a writer, this is the paragraph I'd read aloud to them (from my unpublished novel The Brownstone):
Nile turned and rushed across the room, her footsteps barely audible as she ran up the thickly carpeted staircase. Claudette followed behind her slowly, running her fingers along the intricately detailed banister as she went. It immediately felt familiar, even though it’d been years and years since the last time she’d sat at her father’s side and watched him work, no, create the masterpieces for which he received the accolades of men who from one side of their mouths praised his work and from the other side offered him pennies on the dollar as payment for it. He rarely took their money, though. Instead--with his head hanging low and his rough, soiled hands clutching an old worn cap--he would ask for the scratched, ragged pieces of old furniture that people like these always seemed to have stacked and strewn about in their garages or storage sheds. They always obliged, thinking their faces cleverly hid the ridicule in their eyes as they watched this seemingly foolish, uneducated black man haul away what they believed to be worthless junk. They never bothered to stay in their doorways for very long, though, or they would have seen the smirk on his face at having so easily acquired priceless period pieces that would be restored and sold back to these same unsuspecting families as antiques at, of course, exorbitant prices they were all too willing to pay.
Every now and then, Claudette recalled, there were those pieces that took even her father’s breath away as he restored them. Some of these he brought into their home for her mother, a woman who recognized and appreciated their value, even to the point of drawing up a will that would ensure they be passed on to her daughter and down through the family for generations to come. Other pieces seemed to mysteriously disappear from his workshop without explanation, though there had always been plenty of ugly rumors floating about. Her father, of course, denied them all. And young Claudette always chose to believe him…even though there was that one time when she and Daddy visited Velda Hodges--a pretty, soft-spoken schoolteacher who lived two towns over--and Claudette sat down on a fancy sofa just like the one her father had been working on in his workshop several weeks before. Even then she was sure there was a good explanation for it.
Every now and then, Claudette recalled, there were those pieces that took even her father’s breath away as he restored them. Some of these he brought into their home for her mother, a woman who recognized and appreciated their value, even to the point of drawing up a will that would ensure they be passed on to her daughter and down through the family for generations to come. Other pieces seemed to mysteriously disappear from his workshop without explanation, though there had always been plenty of ugly rumors floating about. Her father, of course, denied them all. And young Claudette always chose to believe him…even though there was that one time when she and Daddy visited Velda Hodges--a pretty, soft-spoken schoolteacher who lived two towns over--and Claudette sat down on a fancy sofa just like the one her father had been working on in his workshop several weeks before. Even then she was sure there was a good explanation for it.
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