SHE'S BACK

THE BEST OF RICHMOND - LAST WEEK

She’s back.

I’m tempted to give you some grand explanation for my ten month disappearance from Substack, but honestly? Sometimes life just carries you elsewhere for a bit. No retreat. No reinvention. Just a pause. And now I’m back.

Nutshell of life’s happenings during the hiatus …that will likely bloom into multiple over wordy Substacks coming this fall … I lost my precious dog (RIP my sweet Goldie Hawn), moved to a new city (Hi Richmond!), and have been bopping about different places (Sedona, Orlando, Charleston, Amsterdam, Montauk, NYC umpteen times, Raleigh, Greenville, Charlotte, Conway and Myrtle to name a few). Until I write about those, this week features two house tours, one possible murder, several wealthy gays, a Broadway singalong, and the growing realization that Richmond is about the kindest most welcoming city there ever was!

I pulled into town last Saturday afternoon just before I was to report to volunteer duty for the 30th Annual Mother’s Day House Tour. I’d left Lovage, my little borrowed piece of paradise from Pam and Sunny at Ditch Plains in Montauk, at 5 a.m. just to make it back to Richmond for this tour. I’m a proud member of the Museum District Women’s Club (even though I don’t live in the Museum District. More to come on this later.) and had volunteered to be a docent at the 3142 Monument Avenue house.

So 8.5 hours on the long straight line of interstate 95, four rest-stop stretches, one gas fill up, 47,000 tolls (this may be a minor exaggeration, but not too far off), three separate two hour conversations with friends, this Ed Mylett podcast that rearranged my investment brain chemistry, and two venti Starbucks later, I was home. To this cute pink house that looks like she belongs in Miami, but is settled here in the Richmond, Fan.

As I unloaded the car, I noticed what appeared to be a convention of men on my street. Hallelujah. Pam and Sunny had gifted me a beautiful table that had lived in their home, Lovage, forever. They were spring cleaning and Pam squealed, after I gushed over it... “You have to take the table.Oh my GODDDDDD! It’s like you somehow knew you needed to drive, so you could take back furniture!” Everything is a sign or a wow to Pammy and her excitable energy is contagious. So, I put down my hatch and we loaded her in. I had spent the entire drive home not knowing how exactly “she” was going to make it inside. She heavy, she delicate, and did I mention? She HEAVY! I needed men’s strength.

I carried in one more load and when I returned back outside, to recruit one of these burly men to help, I saw exactly no one. It was as if the sheer force of my hopeful thinking had sent out some sort of neighborhood wide male repellent. I walked up and down my block until I spotted a guy. Slim build. Earbuds in. Purposeful stride. He’ll do! I flagged him down and delivered my most convincing Southern damsel-in-distress plea. “Would you please help me move a gorgeous slightly heavy table inside?”

He introduced himself as Chauncey from Hanover Street and immediately said yes… and also gave a strong Armand Goldman vibe. Chauncey loved the table. Gushed over it. Ran his hand along it in the way people do when they understand craftsmanship and possibly own many pairs of linen pants. “I knew you’d get it,” I told him. (The table is sandy, paint chipped and full of character. Some people wouldn’t see its beauty.) After he helped me position her on the bare wall that had been screaming for attention since the day I moved in. I invited him to come visit her anytime he was on my block.

During moments like these, I always think, Oh, of course I’ll see this person again. And then days (almost a week now) pass and regretfully I realize I may not see him again because I don’t know how to. Whaaaaa.

May the Chauncey from Hanover Street quest begin.

To get back to it, I was volunteering at Bill and Bill’s house on Monument Avenue. Nicole, our house captain, had assigned me there because she said, “You are going to love the homeowners.” Translation: they’re fabulous gay men.

I’ve been craving more gays in my life. I know I know that isn’t politically correct to say. But I did ask my favorite gay, Jim (you’ll meet him soon), if I was allowed to say that and he exclaimed “Absolutely!”

Every city I’ve ever lived in has eventually delivered me a small elite council of homosexuals who improve my posture, dance moves, vocabulary, sass, and sense of “you could do better” when they meet said guy and give the look. Richmond, so far, has felt a little gay-adjacent, aside from my main squeeze, Jim, and his partner Brent, but especially after learning that there was a couple who answered to Bill and Bill… I remained hopeful.

I arrive at their house, open the front door, and step into … complete silence. Not just quiet. But I’d call this… rich quiet. The kind where you instinctively lower your voice because somewhere nearby there’s probably a room dedicated solely to stationery.

I start calling out “Hello?” then graduate to a more theatrical “Yoo hooo?” as I wander deeper into the home. Eventually I made my way outside and discovered the volunteers standing around learning the inside house-scoop from one of the Bills.

Oh my god! I know him! I thought.

Rewind. Months earlier, when my mother was visiting, we’d stopped at Stella’s for lunch at the bar. I was mid-conversation when my mother suddenly reached behind me to straighten a crooked candle in a candelabra. She sat back down just as an extremely southern voice nearby announced: “Well thank gawd. I’ve been starin’ at that thang fo-eva wonderin’ if anyone was gonna put me outta my misery and straighten it.” It was (the same) Bill, having a boozy lunch with a friend.

As her daughter, my mother too, has never met a fabulous gay man she didn’t immediately begin mentally co-hosting a brunch with. So, the moment he complimented her candle adjustment, she practically swelled with pride, and added... “If only someone had a lighter to char the wick!” Bill, without missing a beat: “Da-lin’, my grandmotha would be rollin’ ova in her grave if a damn candle was displayed unlit.”

The two of them shared a kind of cackle that can only exist between people who understand southern snobbery to the nth degree and the importance of presentation. Not beauty exactly. But standards.

Then Bill asked to take our picture. Which felt bizarre and oddly significant, like the beginning of a movie where someone dies elegantly in the second act and they go back to the picture to reference that damn candle!

I remember leaving lunch thinking: I’ll definitely see that man again. Like I did with Chauncey. Only in this scenario, I was right!

Five months later, there I was in his backyard while he casually described the “naked pool parties that the previous owners (yeah right) were rumored to have hosted in his swimming pool.” Exactly the sort of historical preservation I support.

I met the group: Alison, Bonnie, Diane, Nicole, Lawrence, and Elaine. Together we had the unmistakable energy of people who could either run a flawless charity event (like this one) or accidentally start a small religion with our convincing narratives (more to come on that). We were, without question, the dream team.

At one point I asked Bill if there was anything actually interesting about the house beyond the usual rich people details… this is made from mahogany, this imported stone was shipped in from Greece, this wallpaper was selected by someone named Sebastian who only communicates through swatches… “Was there a murder here by chance? Did anyone die in the house?”

And right then Lawrence, who until that moment had been giving off the quiet energy of a retired novelist, casually said, “You know… I think there was a murder.” I spun around so fast I nearly inhaled a mosquito. “Indeed there was,” I announced, despite having absolutely no evidence. “I heard it was a hanging. And apparently those massive trees behind the koi pond over there are thriving now due to all the human fertilizer.” No one corrected us, which was all the encouragement we needed. From then on, this became our running house joke. Every overly lush hydrangea, every suspiciously healthy fern, every aggressively vibrant patch of ivy became “the victim working their magic.” Someone would admire the landscaping and one of us would solemnly whisper, “Well… tragedy feeds beauty.”

At the volunteer reception later that evening - which I had sworn I was only going to stop by for a second, the way people say they’re just going to have one drink before waking up with a falafel in their purse. I somehow stayed the entire evening listening to the band, meeting the coolest people from all the other Museum District clubs (dodging the ‘what block do you live on?’ question. Because I don’t live on any block in the Museum District. I’m only pretending to so I can be in this cluuuuub!! Again. More to come on that later.) and systematically worked my way through every IPA in the cooler like a divorced dad at a fishing tournament.

But the best part? The second I walked in, I spotted Suzanne Pollak. I knew her from Charleston. “Suzanne! It’s me. Hart’s friend!” Hart is one of my closest friends from my Charleston years, and she was the once upon a time future daughter-in-law of Suzanne’s. She dated her son. We gabbed for a while about the Charleston Library Society, where I used to work, the Literary Festival, where Suzanne is greatly involved, and Jonathan Green’s infamous Salons that we both attended back when they were word of mouth only.

Suzanne introduced me to her husband, Don, and mentioned they had a home here in Richmond. What somehow failed to occur to me, despite being at a house tour volunteer reception, was that she herself might actually have a house on the tour. This revelation arrived the next day.

The following afternoon, I met up with Christina, one of my newer Richmond friends and an actual resident of the Museum District, so is in the club legitimately, for lunch at Franklin Inn. After, we headed off to tour the houses before taking our volunteer shifts.

We started at the house on Arthur Ashe Boulevard to work our way up the neighborhood. And because we’d been told volunteers could skip the lines, I took this instruction with the confidence and entitlement of a woman boarding first class despite gripping her visible economy ticket. We floated right past a line of sweating civilians while I internally repeated the mantra: I have credentials.

In no time, we were walking through this gorgeous house admiring the trim work, the antiques, the red painted ceiling that, as a volunteer guide explained, “Suzanne chose because that would have been historically accurate for the period” … when suddenly I stopped walking. Suzanne? I thought. Then I said, “Wait… does Suzanne Pollak live here?” At that moment I spotted her cookbook sitting on the coffee table and just like that everything came into focus. She was at the volunteer party because she had volunteered her home, not herself to be on the house tour. Earth to AC!

When we left, I told Christina how I had run into Suzanne the night before, how I knew Suzanne from Charleston, about Hart, and about Suzanne’s tiny pink house on Church Street that looked less like a residence and more like a dollhouse built for a very stylish ex of… wait for it… Daryl Hall from Hall & Oates. Christina nearly choked.

Cutting my adult teeth in New York City - where celebrities pretend they are casual people... so they share the same metro car or reservation time at the same restaurant with you.. and you’re like wait what? and they’re like, yeah, this is normal. But it isn’t - trained me to speak about wildly famous people with the same tone you’d use to discuss your new dentist. “Oh yes, Suzanne. Lovely. Tiny pink house. Formerly dated to a pop icon. Anyway…”

Christina’s reaction felt ironic considering she’s famous in her own right here in Richmond. I mean in just about 10 hours I’m going to her concert at Harry’s.

The tour itself was spectacular, but 3400 Park Avenue absolutely undid me. First of all, the address alone sounds chic malique! Like someone who owns the house also owns monogrammed cocktail napkins and says things like, “We summered briefly in Maine.” It was one of those enormous four-square homes that somehow felt both grand and deeply livable. The kind of place where you immediately begin assigning yourself rooms. This would be my writing library. That would be where I dramatically reread old love letters during thunderstorms to make myself cry. And so on…

Of all the homes on the tour, it was easily my favorite. The kind of house where, if the walls could talk, they’d gently murmur: “No, darlin’, we don’t need a television in this room,” because somewhere else… likely concealed behind a hidden bar panel.. there’s a private cinema with velvet seating and a popcorn machine.

And then I learned the history of the property, which of course made me love it even more. Apparently the home I was touring had originally been built for the … wait for it… groundskeeper. The mansion, however, for the billionaire who built these two homes, Whitmell S. Forbes, sat somewhere far away from this house on their… are you ready??… 37-acre estate. You read that correctly! They had built these homes just before the depression and after, being on the market for years, without a buyer in site, they eventually (ahhh covering my eyes as I type this..) tore the massive mansion (something like 10xs as large as the house I was in) down. In its place came what is now the better part of the Museum District. An entire neighborhood born from one massive estate being sliced apart like a sheet cake for the upper middle class.

There’s something so wonderfully (and disturbingly) American about that. One generation says, “Build me a manor.” The next says, “Actually… what if we built forty-eight charming colonials and one dentist office instead?”

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MY ACCOMPLICES

Work has been suspiciously calm these past several weeks. Praise be to the seasonal slowdown Gods. For months I genuinely wasn’t sure I would be able to sustain the volume of projects drowning me amidst the open waters of Slack notifications and calendar invites. But lately? Nada. And it’s been absolute afternoon BLISS.

Like last Tuesday afternoon, I logged off at 3 p.m. and went for my first long run of the season. The kind of run where, halfway through, suddenly your lungs feel handmade. Your kidneys seem overworked. Your left knee starts sending formal complaints to management. And despite technically being “in shape,” you begin mentally drafting your will somewhere around mile four.

Fortunately I had a dinner date to get to … any excuse to make my way back home!

That evening I’d been invited to dinner with my fellow volunteer and fake murder accomplices - Lawrence and Elaine. At 6:30 p.m. I biked over to their house where we sat on the porch sipping wine and discovering that we had alarming amounts in common. Have I mentioned? They’re a good 28 - 42 years older than me? I have always been told I’m an old soul…

They had once lived in Italy. Had gone intending to stay only a few months and somehow remained there for over two years. “Sounds familiar,” I said, as though I hadn’t recently done the ummmm exact same thing in France.

Their precious, snuggly dog, Ranger, rested beside me while I reached for my glass of red wine on their porch. And then, without warning, he released the loudest, most aggressive bark I have ever heard come out of something that looked so emotionally stable. Scared. Me. To. Death. Everything slowed down instantly as I watched a tidal wave of ruby red wine launch itself out of the stemmed glass and directly onto moi. Within seconds my blue-and-white pinstripe shirt was soaked and I looked like I’d survived an actual murder. Elaine immediately whisked me upstairs and lent me one of her own shirts which, did you catch the part about being alike earlier?, was a blue-and-white pinstripe button-down. She had many in her closet… as I do.

By the end of the evening they were absolutely adamant that I not bike home. So, despite the fact that I am a forty year old woman who has used a bicycle as a primary means of transportation for roughly ummmmm I’d say thirty two of those years (I’ve been movin and groovin on two-wheels from an early age!), I thought it was sweet. So I didn’t even argue.

I loaded Joy Ride into the back of Lawrence’s car and we had the loveliest drive through the neighborhood, swapping family stories at stoplights like we’d known each other for years instead of approximately just one fake house murder ago.

Then, sitting at the light on Robinson and Grove, Lawrence turned to me and said, “You’re delightful, AC. Truly. How do we keep you here in Richmond?”

And reader, if you’re trying not to fall in love with a city, that is an extremely inconvenient thing to hear.

That night, after getting home from Lawrence and Elaine’s… and after listening to their not at all subtle campaign about all the available houses “right here in the neighborhood” … I made the fatal mistake of opening Zillow. Somewhere between changing out of Elaine’s borrowed shirt and brushing my teeth, I entered that delicate period when you’re slightly wine drunk, freshly affirmed, and only one charming front porch away from financial irresponsibility. By 2 a.m. I had found one!

Let me back up. On my drive back from Montauk a few days earlier, as I mentioned above, I had listened to one of Ed Mylett’s podcasts and became completely intoxicated by the idea of buying property as an investment. Ed has a way of speaking that makes you feel like you are simultaneously underachieving and moments away from billionaire status, as he is. By hour two I was fully convinced I should own at least one thoughtfully renovated property and possibly also a boat.

So the next day, on my way to meet The Book Club (we call ourselves TBC for short) at Fighting Fish for an early bird sushi dinner before the Project Hail Mary movie at Bow Tie Cinemas, I decided to take a small detour past 424 Roseneath. The house I had admired since moving here, and that I found in my rabbit hole house hunting the night before (or was it morning?), was on the market!

She was gorg, and her only flaw is that she is directly across the street from a house sized skeleton that is nothing less than ridiculous and a complete eyesore for anyone who has that as a porch view. Yuck! Hard pass.

And then, because Richmond is apparently growing smaller by the second. I ran directly into Bill.

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FINAL TOUR WITH A SIDE OF SINGALONG + JUGGLING ACT

The week ended with another type of tour. In MY neighborhood this time.

Jim and I met for coffee at the new Idled Hands on Robinson, where he immediately called me out for “pretending to live in the Museum District while actually residing in the Fan.” Which is not not the truth.

And while technically the distinction is meaningless to anyone outside of Richmond, and honestly to many people inside of Richmond too, I have, in fact, been pretending to live in the Museum District for close to eight months now.

The reason is simple: the women are INCREDIBLE. Especially my favorites, Nicole and Becky!

Last October I got invited to a Halloween party in the Museum District and met a dazzling group of women who invited me into what they referred to only as “the club.” At some point, the person I was with, who actually lived in the Museum District, started raving about my house and suggested I host the next gathering. I was flattered of course. The women turned toward me immediately. “And where exactly do you live?” one asked. I told them my cross streets. And in unison, their faces fell. “Oh no,” one said. “That’s the Fan.” Another shook her head sympathetically. “You’re not in the Museum District,” they informed me. “Not even close,” another added.

Panicked, and desperate to remain in what I imagined to be a highly selective social organization, I did the only thing I could think to do. I pretended to be confused. “What am I saying?” I laughed, waving vaguely toward my friend’s house. “I live right there.”

Now, under normal circumstances this lie might’ve collapsed immediately. But everyone had been drinking something I feel like was called … Witches Brew (?), which I remember possibly containing something like cider, bourbon, prosecco, wine, vodka, and perhaps NyQuil. Basically, a memory eraser. To my astonishment, they accepted the correction without question. And just like that, I became a Museum District Woman. I’ve been in the club ever since.

According to Jim, who lives in a gorgeous house in The Fan … a block away from my gorgeous house in The Fan, if I was going to behave this way, I should at least stay properly informed about the neighborhood I actually inhabit. He’s right! That evening, he invited me to join him, his partner Brent, and his friend Aidere (who I have a massive lady crush on now) to people watch on his porch for the Fan Art Stroll.

Sidebar… For about forty-ish days now I’ve been practicing Transcendental Meditation twice a day which has begun to mellow me the f$#@ out. During the course of Jim and my conversation I mentioned that we share yet another person in common: Courtney. I had met Courtney during my meditation course. She was my partner there and as it would turn out (again, Richmond is habitually growing smaller for me) she works with … wait for it… Brent… Jim’s partner!!

At this point Jim put down his coffee, crossed his arms, and looked at me very seriously. “If you know Courtney, then it’s official. You have to stay in Richmond now. Courtney is the chicest person… and you two together?! Ya’ll would run this place.” My heart swooned.

We also ran into Mariah at the coffee shop. Another new friend of mine by way of Christina who I referenced above. So again, Richmond is apparently just … TINY.

That night, I bopped over to Jim and Brent’s house amidst the swarm of people on Grove for the Fan Art Stroll.

Enter Aidere. She and Jim had gone to Collegiate together (private school here in RVA) from kindergarten through high school, and their laughter had that rare quality unique to people who share both a history and at least three bad decisions with each other. The kind of laughter that begins before the sentence does. It was contagious to be around them all night! Aidere was devastatingly chic. Exactly half Jane Birkin and Diane Keaton. My unicorn muse. We gabbed for hours on their porch and watched the parade of people pass, stop in for a hug, and get a wine top-off from Jim’s heavy hand. Gawd I loved this town that night!

Eventually we wandered off their porch and into the sea of people. Walking up Grove to walk down Hanover. Jim was repeatedly stopped by people. He’s the mayor I thought! All hail Jim. And, he’s the best host. Each time he’d speak to someone, he’d immediately turn to introduce me and then moments after we left them, he would circle back to who they were, how he knew them, and why I should too. My own walking talking White Pages.

We ended at Sally and Greg’s. The mastermind (her) and the artist (him) behind the whole art walk operation. What an upgrade. We stood there talking for nearly an hour when a magician named John appeared with this funny little microphone headset and kept us in stitches as he blew our minds with his magic act. He juggled, created four coins out of only three inside MY closed fist, he pulled out the seven of hearts after Jim had merely thought about the seven of hearts, he made ropes lengthen and shorten just by touching them, and he remembered all of our names - most impressive of all! (Turns out he’s genuinely famous in Richmond… later verified by Jane’s husband, Patrick. Who’s lived here since the womb and laughed when I mentioned that I met him. He hadn’t seen him since grade school he said.)

Don’t worry, I took his card. He may or may not be coming to my next birthday party, by which I mean he absolutely is.

Oh! And before I move on to the gay singalong, would you guess it? Sally knew of Chauncey from Hanover! A (re)meet and greet is being arranged. I can finally rest.

Eventually Aidere split off and Jim and I made our way to Chez Foushee for a Broadway gay singalong, a phrase that still sets my permagrin in full motion. It was, without exaggeration, the best night of my life. (In Richmond anyway.)

Within minutes of arriving, I’d made best friends with everyone! Jim knew half the men, so that meant I did too by association. That’s what’s so great about a small(ish) town and a gay man who happens to be the mayor. By mere association, I’m in! Men in crop tops and cutoff shorts, suits and ties, fitted workout attire and all the inbetweens each spun me on the dancefloor as our MC, Mark, belted “You’ll Be Back” from Hamilton. A song that brings a memory surge of the night in Paris when Leah invited me to a Broadway Musical Trivia night. She and our friend of the evening, Mr. Queen, absolutely annihilated the competition with their rendition of that same song.

We won first place that night, in case you were curious. And of course you were. So read THIS for proof.

The next morning, before brunching with my sweet aunt Joy, who has lived here for years and loves it, I went on my final (open house) tour of the week. To see that gingerbread looking house at 424 Roseneath. Forget the skeleton. Of course I fell in love with it immediately, because that’s apparently my default setting when presented with old wood, good light, no loud trio of pussy cats pouncing on one another at all hours of the night disturbing the sweet lady living directly below them trying desperately to get her beauty sleep … ohh sorry I got a bit carried away… I mean, and the faint possibility of an actual backyard.

It’s not a go just yet… but lawd she was cute!

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YOU HAVE TO STAY

Over the course of just a few days, three different people spontaneously told me how much they enjoyed being around me. One suggested I buy the house next door so “we can have a coffee date every morning.” Another said, “You can’t leave now that you know everyone chic.” Someone else told me, very thoughtfully, “You move through the world with such conviction. I love watching you interact with people. You have to stay!” Which is especially nice to hear when so much of your personality is essentially just walking up to strangers and asking overly personal questions with eye contact.

But what struck me most was realizing that in the span of a single week, on two different porches, one new dinner table, and four walks through (both of my claimed) neighborhoods, I kept hearing the same thing … “We have to find a way to keep you here.”

Not as pressure. Not as obligation. More like affection. As though I had somehow become part of the rhythm of things without noticing it happening myself. And maybe that’s why I wanted to start writing En Route again. The first time since moving here back in September, last week, I didn’t feel like I was visiting Richmond … I felt included in it.

And to add chocolate drizzle on my love this place sundae, last Monday evening while walking along and half paying attention to a podcast about either emotional resilience or cult leaders I passed a massive group of bicyclists gathering in a parking lot. There I met another Bill. I paused the narrator on my pod and looked him square in the eyes “I’ve gotta know everything that’s happening here! What are y’all about to do?” He was visibly touched by my enthusiasm and explained that every Monday evening at 6 p.m. the Bike Monday Bros meet at this parking lot and ride together through the city for about two hours.

I practically squealed with glee. Eeeeep! I marked my calendar instantly.

I noticed that every single person was wearing a helmet. Every. One. So I asked, “Oh. Is that a rule?” And Bill, cocking his head, replied.. “No. But it IS a law.” The way he said it made me feel like I’d just asked whether pants were optional at jury duty. Still, I was charmed. I will be sharing my tales about my joy ride on the next En Route.. But rest assured, I led the bunch as we peddled out on Monday evening.

Xxo ac