The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone

by Adele Griffin

  Addison and I wore black leggings and black T-shirts, and we tied ourselves together at the waist with kitchen twine.

  “Synchronicity empowers,” she’d say. We didn’t look much alike—but we were about the same height, both a hair over five nine, and our names—Addison and Erickson. Inside, we were the shit-kicking duality. Our party crushed it, and then it was too much. I’d guess five hundred people in all, through the night? Sometimes it was packed like a transit car pulling into Grand Central.

  STEPHANIE NORTON: I was hanging out with my big brother that weekend. I’d just come back from a college tour, and I was heading up to Choate afterward. Alexandre invited me to come with him to a party Zach’s girlfriend was throwing. Addison and I are—were—the same age, and I guess I think of myself as fairly knowledgeable of New York. Been there, done that, got the swag. My family is connected, I grew up connected, I’ve done so many clubs and shows and parties and galas and benefits, it’s how I mark my timelines—did I get my braces off before the Robin Hood benefit or after Young Friends of the Frick?

  And even still, I’d never seen anything like Addison Stone, and I’ve never been to anything like that party she threw. She was this slim, dark shadow, as perfect as an object of art, but she was also full of life—demanding, hilarious, wild, elegant. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. From a distance it seemed like she was standing perfectly still, but as you drew closer to her, you realized her life. She was listening, talking, thinking, her ideas were burning like meteors through her head.

  I was too shy to speak to her. She singled me out. To this day I’m not sure why. “You must be Alexandre’s sister.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You have his same haughty melancholy in your eyes.”

  Haughty melancholy! I’d never heard myself described like that. Then she picked up a pen and her notebook, and she drew me, sssswp ssswp ssswp, in a quick sketch.

  “That’s so pretty!” I said. I was also shocked. It looked just like me. She got me. And she had done it with so little effort.

  “I’da found you,” she answered. I didn’t know what she meant. Why would she have found me?

  Later, she grabbed my number from Alexandre and texted me to come sit for her. Alexandre said I’d be a fool not to. If Addison Stone wanted to paint my portrait, I’d better drop everything and go to her. So I came down the next weekend and sat for the portrait that became Being Stephanie. She was so sweet—she took me out to dinner, she told me the story about her scars, and “Ida”—which was creepy, but the way Addison talked about it, somehow, it seemed normal-ish.

  ERICKSON MCAVENA: The end of that night is a daze. At some point, a few of us were playing Twister—which kind of became the signature game of future parties. And then at a darker, later hour, our party went to hell in a hand-basket. Kids getting nekkid, kids pissing in our potted fern because the line to the one bathroom was too long. We had some drugs around, sure. Nothing serious. I myself was higher than a Georgia pine, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. Addison didn’t drink or do drugs, since she was on such a serious scrip, plus her brain at rest was trippier than anywhere you get to on other substances. It was never as wild as they made it out to be. If that girl Danielle hadn’t gotten hurt, nobody would ever have thought about that party again.

  I’d never met Danielle Stanley. The girl who fell from the fire escape. I didn’t even recall her face. But within minutes, TMZ was on it. They covered the story, adding in all kinds of scoops about Addison and Zach and their wicked partying ways.

  Danielle Stanley was here in the city to study architecture. From what I heard, she’ll never walk without a cane. A month after we visited her in the hospital, she moved back to Wisconsin. Addison was really upset about the whole thing. You know, I never even saw an ambulance? That whole night was way too notorious. And it sure didn’t help Addison’s reputation as a wild child.

  Late-night Twister party at Court Street apartment, courtesy of Erickson McAvena.

  ADDISON STONE (from her own recorded notes): I am now a New Yorker! Living the dream. I even bought myself one of those lame I NEW YORK T-shirts. Why not, right? I’ve seen the logo my whole life, and now here I am. Heart-ing it. It’s kind of cosmic. But what a stupid mess of a weekend. Poor Danielle. If we hadn’t had the party, she wouldn’t have almost died, right? Erickson and I did a Good Samaritan drop-in with candy and flowers, and that actually felt worse, because Danielle was still feeling bad that she’d party-crashed. And then she really crashed! Anyway, I keep telling myself it’s not my fault. But it’s cruising on the edge of my fault. It’s close enough to the edge of my fault that now I’ll talk about other things.

  What else, what else? Berger secured me studio space in Chelsea. I’m set up with my bank account and Visa card. No more mooching off Bank of Zach. Yes to that. Zach’s open wallet did not exactly give me a crusading feminist feeling. Funny thing, my whole life all I ever did was worry about money, or listen to my folks fight about money, or feel humiliated at all the shabby parts of my life. So now my central life’s worry has been wiped out. What do I worry about, if I can’t worry about money? That is the burning question!

  Here’s my worry answer: the future. My future. My legacy. Crazy, since I’ve barely started. But I think about it. I want people to say, “That’s the grandmother of—” whatever I end up becoming. I want to walk through my retrospective at the MoMA at age eighty-three in a long scarlet dress and fire-engine-red lipstick and have everyone whisper, “Addison Stone really means something. To herself, and in the world.”

  So okay. Big plans! To be continued!

  ERICKSON MCAVENA: Addison’s work studio was at Seventh Avenue and 18th Street. Top floor of the Hellmuth Building. She loved the studio because a Dutch artist she admired, Karel Appel, had once lived in the same building. Her address was also one building away from the studio where Willem de Kooning had painted all his life.

  “Ghosts of Dutchmen are all around,” Addison would say. “Orderly ghosts. I’ve known disorderly ghosts, Erickson, and believe me, my Dutch ghosts are better.” I never knew if she was joking with me on that.

  She was painting Stephanie Norton, and she was also working on a few studies for a painting she’d do some months later, of her therapist, Roland Jones. She liked offbeat faces—she enjoyed learning more about a person through the rendering of their face.

  Addison thought Roland—“Doc,” she called him—was a smart therapist because he was a really careful listener. I told her whatever, she just wanted to paint his Old Wise Man beard. That girl could log in some hard hours painting. I don’t think I ever met anyone who worked harder. I’d have to text her reminders to come home. Then she’d drag herself back bone-tired to the apartment. I’d have soup, mac & cheese, all her comfort food ready. But she liked to work.

  Zach Frat was the unwanted distraction. He was always putting pepper in the gumbo, trying to bribe Addison into going out with him to the clubs—and you can’t fool me; I knew half the reason was to get his face in the paper with his It Girl arm candy.

  He’d show up all hours at the Court Street apartment, looking for her. He could be such a pain in the ass. “Why is Addison still at the studio?” he’d ask me. “Text her, tell her we want her to come home.” Like I was the butler.

  Or, he’d give me the sad version: “Do you think she’s forgotten about me?”

  Or, the paranoid version: “Do you think there’s another guy?”

  Or, the bro-to-bro version: “Erickson, give it to me straight. Do you know what’s up with Addison? Does she ever talk shit about me? ’Cause if you know, you gotta tell me!”

  I never knew what Addison saw in Zach. There’s a Southern saying—you can’t know the depth of the well by the handle of the pump. Zach was a shiny handle. But there was no depth to that guy.

  Addison and Erickson in the kitchen of their apartment, courtesy of Marie-Claire Broyard.

  ZACH FRATEPIETRO: Look, I understand artists, okay?
I was raised by them, no kidding; all my babysitters either smelled like sculpting clay or turpentine. I get their narcissism and their insecurity. But I’d done everything for Addison. I’d set her up huge. I watched that Addison ate real breakfasts and took her Zyprexa. I made sure she was checking in with her therapist, Tuttnauer—“Nut Tower,” Addison called her. And also with her New York therapist.

  “Shake, rattle, and Roland Jones,” I’d remind her whenever she had an appointment. I’d even stay in the waiting room. Just so she had me to lean on after. She was ashamed of her therapy. She hated being reminded that she needed it. But I never minded. Artists and shrinks go together like milk and cookies.

  And I made sure that Addison wasn’t in her studio till four in the morning. I’d break those nine-, ten-hour work sessions just as much as Erickson did. And I did it by getting her out to meet friends. When I look back, I realize I’d put my own life on hold. I was a glorified gardener, pruning and watering and watching for every new mood blossom on the Addison Stone tree.

  All I wanted was some respect. All I wanted was for her not to jerk me around with prima donna behavior. But power corrupts, right?

  Like maybe I’d get on her case—just a little bit—for not showing up to somewhere. So I’d call her and say something like, “Hey, where are you, Addison? We are all at Blue Ribbon; it is so-and-so’s birthday party. Thought you were coming to this.”

  And she’d go, “Oh, yeah, I’ll be there in twenty. I’m leaving right now.”

  Then an hour later, I’d call her. “Where are you? You said you were just leaving?”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry, Zach. I’m not coming anymore.”

  And I’d be like, “Fucking hell, Addison! We haven’t even ordered dinner because we’re all sitting around with our thumbs up our asses, waiting for you!”

  Soon it got to be a habit. If she felt too cornered, then it was: “Fuck you, Zach, I didn’t come to New York City to be your trophy! I came here for my own trophies! If I fail, then what’s left for me? I’ll be an assistant at some second-rate gallery in Providence or Boston. Unlike you, I can’t rely on my million-dollar trust fund.”

  Addison saw her life as all or nothing. Winner take all, loser eats dust. I tried not to step in the ring with her, but it was hard. I’m part Italian, so it’s natural for me to get my dukes up. We’d fight, and we’d say nasty things to each other. Addison liked to throw dishes. I liked to punch walls. But I also like to make up. And I was always looking for the compromise. Not Addison. She’d never go to Blue Ribbon once she decided she didn’t want to go. She believed in doing only what she felt like doing.

  Eventually I knew that her selfish side wasn’t good for me, and I had to let her go. So I did.

  MARIE-CLAIRE BROYARD: However Zach needs to make it right in his head about how he and Addison ended, let me tell you, it didn’t end like that. Their breakup crushed him. Here’s the short version of what happened. When Addison got back to New York City that fall, Zach’s rich-boy glamour didn’t hold the same appeal. So, thud. She dropped him. And she didn’t exactly tell him, either. Not straight. Not clean. Not the way she should have.

  I’d been out with Zach plenty of times that September through October, when Addison was supposed to show, and she’d just stand him up. And he’d lose his mind. “Where is she, goddammit? She always does this!”

  I have to admit, this was the first time I’d seen Zach unravel over a girl. Here’s Zach Frat, modelizer, a hundred different girls in love with him, and Addison Stone had the arrogance to dump his ass. But dump his ass she did. Actually, it was more like a series of a hundred little dumps. Maybe she’d find something at Film Forum she just had to get to, or there was a flash sale, or a Phoenix concert.

  She’d call me and say, “Let’s go see the Renee Dijkstra retrospective at The New Museum, and then hit Jemma on the Bowery for biscuits and gravy—and pleeeease don’t tell Zach. He’s expecting me to be at the Gansevoort.”

  Now I love Zach to pieces, but he’s not the fastest boat in the harbor. He hadn’t realized that his scene had lost its luster. Addison’s boredom was obvious to everybody but Zach, whose brain would never, ever sail into the realization that she’d had enough of flitting around and wasting time being fabulous at the best parties. But when Addison was done, darling, she was done.

  CARINE FRATEPIETRO: I will speak a little bit about this, but I must remind you that on this topic, our lawyers have advised me to be brief. With regard to Addison’s relationship with my son, I was always quite protective of Addison. “Please do not attend Addison Stone’s next opening,” I told him. She had finished Being Stephanie along with some other pieces, and we were showing them, with a very few other select artists, at Berger Gallery. It was a carefully curated show, and I didn’t want it turned into a media circus with Zach’s presence. Addison’s mental stability was also something to consider.

  Being Stephanie by Addison Stone courtesy of the Bellamy Collection.

  “But I discovered Addison,” he said to me. “It’s my opening, too.”

  “Nobody discovered her,” I said. “Do not distress each other. Let it end gracefully.”

  Yes, I was interfering. I was asking him to step away from her. The fight for Addison became a refrain with us. Zach was still in love with Addison, who’d cruelly and unceremoniously called it off with him. As a mother, I ached to protect my son. But Addison, as a young artist, was a votive. The flame of a votive is small and relatively unguarded, and it also must be protected. In the turmoil of Zach’s own emotions, he himself could not be called on to respect that flame. And so I asked him not to go near it.

  Do I blame Zach for subsequent mistakes with regard to Addison Stone? I do. That situation was being mishandled months before the tragedy. But again, my family has been advised not to speak in depth about this, so please excuse me if I don’t.

  ERICKSON MCAVENA: Teddy and I cooked up a theory that Addison and Zach fell in hate with each other. And their hate affair was a lot harder on ’em than love. Our theory went like this: Zach had everything that Addison needed—education and money and connections. But Addison had the only thing Zach’s renowned mommy really valued—genius. So if the brilliant Addison loved Zach, then it was proof to Carine that he was worthy. When she broke it off, it reinforced all of his insecurity about himself as a false, flashy wanna-be in the art world.

  The break-up was a mess. Addison’s leading trait is fearlessness. Zach’s is bravado. Addison could be ruthless, too. She had to win. And so did Zach. When they turned against each other, boy, did the fur fly.

  There’s this one night when me and Teddy and Addison were hanging in the apartment, lazing around, watching a movie, and all of a sudden Addison says, “I know! I know how to get him!” She’d been brewing on it. She got Teddy inspired to help her. Next thing I know, the two of them were building a fake gossip website.

  It looked so real! Except every headline was about Zach: “Style Tips from Dirtbag New Yorkers.” Or “Art Scion’s Playboy Son Confesses: How I Lose My Family’s Fortune at 2M a Year.” With private pictures of Zach from Addison’s own stash.

  Teddy’s a part-time web programmer, and he put up the site live.

  Zach got his lawyer to remove it, but not before there’d been over a hundred thousand hits. I think Zach took Addison’s punch straight to the gut. Actually, I know so—I was with Addison when he called her, late that same night. Zach can string the curse words together from here to Sunday. On and on he went. But underneath it, he was hurting. I was surprised, too. I know it was one of those “heat of the moment” ideas, but it was a mean, childish thing of her and Teddy to do. I should have interfered. Somebody needed to be the grown-up.

  Addison never lost a chance to call Zach a spoiled trust puppy. She always wanted him to “see himself for who he is.” It was like she needed to force-feed Zach cruelty truth serum. I knew there’d be more twists on the Zach-and-Addison revenge show. I just never could have predicted how destructiv
e it’d all get. Could anyone?

  FROM THE FIRST MOMENT that I embarked on this biography, I’d figured that my biggest hurdle would be to secure the cooperation of Lincoln Reed. So as I started gathering interviews—living for a couple of weeks in Peacedale, Rhode Island, then traveling to Hong Kong so that I could sit down eye to eye with Max Berger, or catching up with Zach Frat on the EuroRail before the Art Paris Art Fair—I knew that my project was a soufflé that would collapse if I couldn’t pin down Lincoln.

  After Addison died, there was a rumor Lincoln had left the country to live in Nepal. Since Lincoln and Zach both were “people of interest” in the investigation, I figured I’d need to chase the mystery—to Nepal, or to anywhere. Neither Lincoln nor Zach had an alibi. Both could be placed in New York City on the night that she died.

  People speculated that Lincoln had gone into deep hiding until he could get his name cleared. It made sense—Zach had the advantage of money, and the moment there was a breath of suspicion about his part in Addison’s death, he lawyered up. Lincoln didn’t have that fortune cushion. So he had to vanish.

  Finally, late that spring, I got a break. I was tipped off that Lincoln Reed had been summoned to New York City’s Precinct 13 for questioning about his whereabouts on July 28th. But by the time I showed, he was gone. I checked in with Lincoln’s friends, his regular hangouts, his sublet on Elizabeth Street. He was a phantom. Without Lincoln, there was no book.

  That same night, I got an email from the account of “I. DaBristol.” The name was both an alias and a reference to Ida. Whoever was sending this mail, this person knew Addison well. The note was only a Sag Harbor address and a time to meet—a 7 A.M. breakfast at the American Hotel.

  I woke up before sunrise the next morning, drove the two hours to Sag Harbor, walked into the hotel, and there he was, almost unrecognizable: thick beard, shaggy hair, and skin tanned three shades darker than any photo I’d ever seen of him.