The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone

by Adele Griffin

  ZACH FRATEPIETRO: Crazy summer. For one thing, Addison and I got together exclusively. I was twenty-two at the time, three and a half years older, but Addison wasn’t any virgin. I know you didn’t ask me that, but I want to put it out there. This can’t be the story of the guy who rooked Addison Stone’s virginity. I’ve got enough shit talked about me. Anyhow, she’d lost it already to Jonah. She told me. So by the time she met me, she knew how to have fun.

  Once she said, “Sex is the opposite of art. Sex is stupid and thoughtless and easy. Art is complicated and difficult and important.”

  But she was wrong. Sex meant something to Addison. I could always feel her needing to learn more and more about me intimately, what we liked and what made us feel good versus what didn’t, what was just so-so. There wasn’t a thing she wouldn’t try. I never had a girl want to learn me as deeply as Addison. We’d hang out in bed, and the whole afternoon would be gone while we got lost in each other. We came together physically. Sure, we’d been raised in different universes. But in terms of sex, we were equals; we were twins. Whenever I had to leave her, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I’d stumble around, my body felt lost and radioactive till the next time I saw her. I dreamed about her and woke up crazy for her, hot for her; it felt like it would burn me up, that was how bad I wanted her all the time.

  My first gift to Addison was the key to my apartment in Tribeca. The Pratt dorm was hell. I’d been given a top floor of my luxury building the day I turned twenty-one, and I’d made it into a real home. It had perks that were perfect for Addison. Like every morning, they served complimentary breakfast, and there was a gym on the ninth floor, and a maid service, pickup dry cleaners, all that.

  “I love your space,” she told me, “but I’d love it more if Erickson could eat breakfast here, too. Teddy’s always away, and Erickson’s so lonely.”

  “Sure,” I said. I thought she was joking. Turned out she wasn’t. Addison and Erickson dragged each other around everywhere. Wherever one went, here came the other. It got on my nerves. Why do girlfriends always come packaged with best friends? I was a better influence for Addison, anyway. Erickson was a functioning derelict, in my opinion. Meantime, I’d hooked her up with my dentist, my psychic, my trainer—anyone who I thought could assist Addison, I stepped forward and paid that bill, no question.

  “I need so much, but you give me even more,” she told me.

  I gave her a lot because I had a lot, and I wanted to help her. It made me feel like we were building something together. And for the first time, my apartment felt like home.

  MARIE-CLAIRE BROYARD: Darling, say what they will about how much Zach Frat and Max Berger used Addison—and they did, absolutely, each in his own way—nobody but nobody had ever taken care of that girl the way Zach did. I realized it wasn’t healthy. In fact, it could make me squeamish; Zach was so obviously buying her love. But Addison seemed almost like a vagabond. Take her parents, for example—do you know I never even met them, not once? They never called or texted or popped in to check up. They seemed entirely off her grid, except for the fact that I knew she was always sending money to them. That’s the main thing I knew about Addison’s family—that they were on her gravy train. Her high school art teachers were super sweet and obviously adored Addison, but they couldn’t be there for her on a day-to-day basis. And she had this therapist, but therapy isn’t a community. Therapy’s just about keeping a logbook on your sanity.

  So maybe Zach did persuade her into the Berger contract. So what? What if he did? What else was on the table? Who else was watching that girl? And Berger Gallery is a community. Everyone who worked there, from the assistants to the buyers, were wild for Addison. Max is slimy, but in the end, he’ll guard Addison’s legacy like a pit bull for the rest of his life. Ultimately, all Berger cares about is making sure that valuable art stays valuable.

  ROY STONE: So you want to ask me about Max Berger’s contract? Fine. Yes. Maureen and I signed it. Should we have had an expensive lawyer of our own check it out first? Probably. But it came in official and FedExed, with yellow tabs marked for us to put our names, and an envelope to send it back, no expenses. I mean, that’s a professional operation! Mr. Berger is internationally known. Arlene and Bill told us to make sure Addison was repped. They told us without a gallery she might as well sell her art on a card table outside the Met. They told us it was only fair for the gallery to take 35 percent. Hell, some galleries even took 50 percent. They said it was boilerplate. We signed it. We just wanted Addison to be happy and protected. Was that so wrong?

  What they didn’t tell me until after she died is that Berger owns a percentage of everything Addison ever made. Like if my daughter drew some paper dolls in fourth grade? Berger controls those dolls. He calls all the shots on her estate. He can sell the paper dolls and take his cut, or he can cut ’em out and play with them. It’s his call. Her art is his art. All her journals, her sketches, art that she didn’t even sign … I guess that adds up. But I can’t lie—what’s left over is still one helluva lot of money! A fortune! I never thought my own kid was gonna take care of all my financial troubles. These checks come in every coupla months, and I just stare at the zeroes.

  Maureen and I’ve used the money carefully. You’re not gonna make us look bad about that, because you can’t. I bought my houseboat. We paid Charlie’s college tuition in one lump. We bought everybody’s freedom to go their own way. But even when my girl was alive, she wanted to provide for us. I owed money. A little bit here and a little bit there. No big deal, but it had added up. Addison visited us at the end of that first summer, and she settled Maureen’s and my credit cards, and she evened our debts. Snap of the fingers. Like magic.

  ARLENE FIELDBENDER: When Addison came back to Rhode Island in August, Bill and I dropped by Bramble Circle to check in on her, to make sure that she was readjusting all right. It was evident things were not good. Addison looked worn out. She was sleeping a lot, she said, but not working much, unless she was at Lucy’s house. She said she never could work calmly at home because it was a bad atmosphere.

  “And they think I’m staying, Arlene,” she whispered to me in the kitchen. “They think I’m going to finish high school here. But if I go back to South Kingstown after the summer I’ve had in New York, I’ll die.”

  We assured Addison there’d been a miscommunication. But as it turned out, Maureen and Roy Stone had been in touch with Evelyn Tuttnauer. They were all concerned that Addison was drinking, which had counter-effects when taken with her Z. They wanted her home, to stabilize, however long that took.

  MAUREEN STONE: Oh, it was all such a mess. We were very confused! Addison came back to us from New York so drained. All that I’d wanted was for her to get the city and its excesses out of her system. I thought that after the summer, she’d be happy to come home and jump back into the swing of South Kingstown High School. Senior year is special! You’re so much older! The others look up to you! And Addison was a shoo-in to head SKPades, the school arts magazine, and to be on the homecoming committee. She was so stylish, you know. Addison was ambitious and talented, goodness, yes, and she’d had her fair share of troubles. But heavens, I still wanted her to be a girl, enjoying her life. Youth and innocence pass too quickly. “The big city will still be there!” I kept saying.

  Jonah Lenox had graduated, of course. He was gone, living out in Colorado, and Addison missed him. He’d made her junior year safe and happy. But Lucy was here. And there were other nice, handsome boys to date.

  Addison, however, was nothing but temper tantrums and attitude.

  “What’s there to do here? What am I supposed to do here?”

  “What do you mean, what are you supposed to do here?” I’d say. “Just what you’ve always done, of course.”

  She was almost always at Lucy’s, but she had an appointment with Dr. Tuttnauer every day. Just to complain, probably. She’d come back from her sessions and seem particularly furious with me, as if I’d trapped her. As if I’d sing
lehandedly created this jailhouse of a home and a torture of my normal hopes for her. So yes, we fought a bit that August. I’d say the sky was blue, and she’d tell me she didn’t see any sky at all.

  At some point, Addison got hold of a switchblade from Roy’s toolbox, and she took to carving shapes into wood. The floor, the wall, the kitchen table. She just about ruined the house and scared us all to death besides! I’d wake up at three in the morning to find her carving The Artist Is Starving into the windowsill.

  I was scared it would turn into an awful encore performance of what happened in Dartmouth. I was listening—eavesdropping, I guess you’d say—on Addison whenever she was talking to Lucy or Charlie or on the phone with her boyfriend, and I never heard Ida mentioned. But I could sense Ida. I could sense Addison thinking about her. Addison stopped getting dressed, for one. If she was at the house, she just slouched around in the same sweatpants and T-shirt, looking and smelling like a wreck. She was building some sort of gate on the lawn, she worked on it for four days solid, and then she abandoned it. Heavens, it looked as if Noah’s ark had crashed there! Once when I was at work, she painted the entire living room—even the floor—in a purple so deep, it looked black. Another night she spray-painted the grass. Terrible, like a cartoon! She was rattling the bars of her cage, and she wanted everyone to know. Oh, but it was mortifying.

  KARL TAEKO: One morning, I wake up and look through the window across the street. I turned to Ele and asked, “Are my eyes going, or did the Easter Bunny vomit all over Roy Stone’s front lawn?”

  “Neither,” she said. “Addison’s home.”

  CHARLIE STONE: Addison was being a brat, no doubt. Though that Crayola grass looked tight, actually. Everyone drove by to see it. Then all the grass died, and it looked like shit.

  My sister didn’t care. Her art or pranks, whatever you want to call them, were only for that moment. The one good part was that we were hanging out more. We’d sneak out at night—Mom and Dad had no idea. Addison was already kinda fan-page famous—getting her picture taken. Once we went to this club, Ultra, in Providence, and there were paparazzi, actual paps, tracking down a rumor that Addison and Zach had broken up, and she’d crawled home to lick her wounds.

  Strange men with cameras were calling her name and following us down the street. Damn, that was a new one for me.

  Addison and Charlie, out on the town, Providence, Rhode Island. Ken Gilmore for Time Out Providence.

  MAUREEN STONE: If she wasn’t out at Lucy’s or asleep, Addison would be in a near-comatose state, sleeping or whispering on the phone with Zach. One afternoon, I suggested taking her back-to-school shopping. It was a lovely summer day, perfect for strolling through the mall for some shopping, and I thought everything was fine, and then suddenly she snapped and said she wanted to go home.

  “But we haven’t even found your new school shoes,” I said.

  “Mom, you’re killing me!” she yelled. In the middle of the food court, with everyone watching. “Do you really think I can handle trying on loafers? Do you truly think I care about book bags? Do you have a clue what my life has become?”

  I felt terrible. But why did she have to make it all so complicated? Why couldn’t she have just settled in and enjoyed her senior year? Was that really so much for any of us to ask?

  ZACH FRATEPIETRO: I had flown over with some family and friends to stay for three weeks at Villa Divina, our place in Capri, while Addison was trapped in Rhode Island, spinning in circles. Once she called me, crying.

  “Peacedale sucks, my dad’s a drunk, and my mom’s a zombie, and they think I’m staying here for the school year. I’m jumping out the window this minute, Zach. You can’t stop me.”

  I hoped that she was doing better than she sounded. Addison liked to be threatening; it was kind of like her little nudge to remind you she’d done it before. “Baby, you need to jump on a plane, not out the window. Come be with me,” I told her. “You know I’d take such good care of you.”

  “No, I can’t, I can’t. Lucy’s here, and my brother’s here, and this is also my time with them.”

  “Then bring Lucy! She can date Alexandre! Bring Charlie. He’s almost legal; he can chaperone us.”

  She laughed. We had a lot of conversations like that over those next weeks, but that’s always as far as it got.

  It was a catastrophe. Why would Addison’s parents ever think she’d plant down in Rhode Island again? Sorry, but any delusion that Addison was dealing herself in for another year of that pokey ’burbs life after what she’d been doing in New York—it was pathetic. Addison was blowing up. Come September, she’d be spotlighted in every arts magazine that had a real circulation. Her life was about to become huge, and her parents didn’t get the memo.

  LUCY LIM: There’s confusion on this point, right? Some people—cough-cough, Addy’s parents—thought she’d do her senior year at South Kingstown. Other people—cough-cough, Arlene and Bill Fieldbender—thought she was just visiting her folks before moving back to the city for good, and throwing away the keys to Peacedale.

  I think the reason it’s all a jumble is because Addy herself didn’t know exactly what she wanted. She was delicate, health-wise. New York meant a lot of late nights, a lot of parties, and a general vibe of extreme living. Personally, I think Addison crept back to Peacedale to get some very needed TLC, with sleep and rest, even while she was acting like Peacedale was the worst place ever. She could have hopped an Amtrak or a Greyhound any time. But she didn’t. She stayed for most of August, and a lot of those hours were spent in relative peace at my house.

  “New York eats me up, it loves me so.” That’s a thing me and Addy used to say a lot. It’s from Where the Wild Things Are. The monsters like to say it to Max. “I’ll eat you up, I love you so!” We used that phrase for anything. Jewelry or frozen yogurt or boys, and I knew just what she meant.

  In the end, the city did eat her up. Zach, Carine, Gil, Max Berger—they were all Addy-vores, each in a different way. On some level, maybe Addy understood that risk. Lame as Peacedale might be, with our tract homes and fast food and playgrounds, it’s a normal hometown. As broken as Roy and Maureen are, they loved her. At age eighteen, Addison couldn’t really see her own cracks and fault lines, her fatal flaws, the weaknesses that would do her in. But she knew that the boring of Peacedale sealed a lot of vice away from her. And she also knew that New York City opened it right up like a vein.

  BILL FIELDBENDER: The truth? I saw an artist locking herself in the same prison cell that had almost killed her. Boring is also dangerous. Idle hands, et cetera. Addison had to get out of Peacedale.

  Once again, we got that ball rolling. Stepping in once again in mom and dad roles, when the real parents could not function. Arlene called in a favor and arranged for Addison to take some fall semester courses at Pratt. We also secured her a spot at Professional Children’s School, so that she could finish her core curriculum and graduate from an accredited high school—while also working at her craft in a good facility with talented professors.

  The truth is, Maureen and Roy Stone were ridiculously inept. Honestly, Addison would have done better being parented by a pair of sea cucumbers—and you can put that on record. Arlene and I don’t have children of our own, and we saw Addison in some ways as a gift. The child we were meant to have. So it pained us, seeing how often Maureen and Roy took that extraordinary blessing for granted.

  84 Court Street, Brooklyn, courtesy of Erickson McAvena.

  VI.

  ORDERLY GHOSTS

  ERICKSON MCAVENA: I stayed way the hell away from my old Kentucky home that summer. I was in New York City almost the whole time, with some little hop-overs to Atlantic City, one trip up to Saratoga, one to The Pines on Fire Island, and that was it.

  “You deal with getting yourself back to NYC, honey,” I told Addison, “and I’ll scope out our new sweet apartment.” There was no way I’d live in a dorm again. Addison needed a roommate, and Teddy was a resident advisor that year, so he h
ad a free room at Pratt. A single. I was the one who needed to go.

  By the end of July, I’d wrangled us a two-bedroom above an Italian restaurant called Queen in Cobble Hill. It was a great location, between Livingston and Schemmerhorn. Fifth floor walk-up. Okay, it wasn’t the Ritz, but on the top floor, there were skylights, a gas fireplace, plus the kitchen had a new oven and fridge, and we were close to the Borough Hall subway. Doable.

  By Labor Day weekend, Addison was on the train back to me. We got Max Berger to co-sign our lease that Tuesday, and later that same afternoon, we were washing the walls and ripping up carpet. We loooved our new place. You could stand on the fire escape and smell the fresh-baked bread and pasta sauces wafting up from Queen’s kitchen. Queen was expensive. Way out of our budget. We’d feast on the smells as we ate French fries from the McDonald’s next door.

  “We live on Court Street! We live high above the Queen!” Addison liked to proclaim. “But we are her most neglected subjects!” That’s how we ended up calling our place The Queen’s Shame.

  But it was our palace. We gave it some dazzle. Once we’d repainted—every room a different shade of Addison’s favorite purples, from glossy, deep midnight violet to soft blooming hydrangea to English lavender, we spruced it up with treasures from thrift shops and antique shops. We hit Brooklyn Flea and all the church sales. The jewel in our crown was the day we bought a shabby green velvet Victorian nine-foot-long sofa that we’d found at Housing Works.

  Then Addison says, “We need to throw a housewarming!” And so we did. The epic housewarming. We called it “Hermaphor Night.” You had to come as both your male and female self. Genius, right?