The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone

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?

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.