Anne Marie Rosado

Overview

Welcome to the affluent community of Bryn Mawr, breeding ground for the terminally self-absorbed. For over twenty years, Angela Morgan was an avid social climber and card-carrying member of the exclusive Bryn Mawr Country Club. Now, she is a lonely recluse hiding her failed marriage and insolvent life from the world; living in a house that she can no longer afford, in a neighborhood that she cannot afford to leave.

Living with prestige, opportunity, luck and power made it difficult for Angela to see through the unconscious strata of having too much—until she lost everything.

Besides financial insolvency, Angela’s creative well has run dry. Once a prolific novelist, she believes that she has no more stories to tell. Out of money and out of time, she makes a desperate attempt to resurrect her stale writing career and save her home. Assuming the identity of her realtor friend, one morally bankrupt Sharon Bartelson, Angela begins mining storylines from the lives of Sharon’s wealthy clients.

The exhausting act of maintaining the façade of her former life forces Angela to take a hard look at her herself and the inexcusable way she has treated others.

She grows weary of her entitled neighbors and their demanding mantras and decides to do something about it.

Sometimes, all it takes to harden a heart is a single tipping of the scales, and Angela’s future hung askew at an unsteady angle.

Full of self-loathing, and with nothing left to lose, Angela decides to exact a little revenge. The gloves are off and so are the filters, as she challenges the HOA with punishing rebukes, castigating speeches and public displays of contempt. She takes on her neighbors and the Country Club set with unwavering composure, delivering justice freely and impulsively.

And she doesn’t stop there…

Through humorous twists filled with reconciling, redemption, and a transformative rebirth, Solitary Refinement tells the story of one woman’s quest to find her true self as she converts from wealthy socialite and mendacious cheat, to compassionate voice of what’s right and just.

---

Excerpt

“Listen Sharon, I need your full cooperation, otherwise I won’t divulge a thing. If I can’t trust you, you may kiss your ass and your future six-percent goodbye.”

“Well from where I’m standing, you look like a woman at the end of her tether. You need to offload this place before you lose it.”

“I won’t sell right now, no matter what you think you know about the situation. I’ve got some ideas of my own…”

“What ideas?” Sharon leans in with rapt attention, hoping to eliminate any doubt that she will remain my devoted best friend.

“I’m not telling you. I need to maintain anonymity. I may want a pocket listing in the future, but no gaudy yard sign, no open house, and no photographs. I can’t risk having anyone find out about my circumstances. The minute you post online photos of my home, I’ll have every ingrate within a hundred-mile radius driving by for a little sneak-a-peek. Not to mention the neighbors. They are the worst of the lot. I’ve seen them hungrily line up during an open house or auction in this unspoiled colony of über-snobs. They salivate over the prospect of critiquing a neighbor’s taste in furnishings or delight in sharing tidbits of their financial demise.”

“I know you won’t sell this minute,” Sharon echoed, “but soon people will be lining up to buy an estate from a celebrated author. I have an Asian couple who have already enquired…”

“What have you been telling people, Shar?”

“Oh, don’t get your thong in a knot, Ang. I haven’t said a word. I simply mean that the foreigners are all over the real estate market right now. They’re buying up America!”

Sharon showed up unannounced this morning with a glut of paperwork spilling from her Gucci messenger bag. I rue the day that I gave that woman full access to my home. Besides keys to the front door, she has codes to the gated entry and security system. I can’t afford to have my home monitored anymore, but I continue arming the alarms in case of intrusion. At least there will be the clamoring urgency of sirens, calling out to no one in particular.

Today’s intruder will not presently harm me, but I am acutely aware that could change at any time. Shar has come to collect on our recently arranged agreement to color my hair and trim the ends in exchange for editorial services.

It’s hard to imagine how a woman with a string of degrees and extensive knowledge of the real estate industry can’t figure out how to e-mail files, post them to cloud storage or save them to a thumb drive.

“Don’t want to leave any evidence,” she said when pressed on the subject. Opening her mouth only confuses me, and it will take less time to do Sharon’s dirty work than to figure out exactly what she means by her imperceptive comment.

As I can no longer pay the entrance fee to the pricey salon where I was formerly a client in good standing, Sharon is now my interim stylist. According to the reliable gossip pool, poor Mr. P thinks I have gone elsewhere and that I’ve been cheating on him with a rival hairdresser. If he knew that I hovered over an ornate hammered-copper sink, heavily cloaked in plastic while feebly dripping with colorant, he would simply die. He would first pale with the revelation, then stiffen and faint dead away if there was even mention of a DIY home hair color kit.

For her monthly coiffeur assignment, Sharon has donned heavy elbow-length rubber gloves, a plastic shower cap and stands elegantly swathed from the neck down in a disposable Disney World rain poncho. Adding a scientific quality to her appearance, she complements the ensemble with a pair of designer ski goggles.

“You look like an idiot,” I tell her.

“You look pathetic,” she counters. “Your version of a brunette is slightly less conspicuous than the darkly stained goatee of a Saudi prince.”

Shar can’t chance anyone finding out about the deceptive diatribe that she inserts into her reticent real estate listings. Nor can she compromise her steady stream of sweetheart deals; though I believe she got the better end of this deal. The only thing that I’m trying to conceal is gray hair and lack of funds. Sharon Bartelson has more scandals to cover up than a career politician.

As Shar hastily rinses my hair, she informs me that her work here is done.

“Clean up your own mess,” she states matter-of-factly.

Though I know she is referring to the bathroom that is splattered with dark pigment, I cannot help thinking that she means much more.

Overwhelmed by what my life has become, I dry my hair, grab the overstuffed messenger bag and climb the winding staircase to my office for some good old-fashioned real estate double-dealing.