I think Addison was genuinely surprised that he had tracked her down. It was painful for me, but I tried to be cool with it. Still. It was—bang. No matter how many slurred apologies. The bottom line was I’d been fired and replaced.
After Zach left, we hung out, ate the popcorn, talked, just like we’d planned, but the day was empty. Before I left, Addison gave me this sketch—The Lenox. Her last gift.
The Lenox by Addison Stone, courtesy of Jonah Lenox.
“I get it that you don’t belong to me,” I said to her. “Not that you ever did. But I’m already missing you from my life.”
“I know,” she answered. That was her answer. Not “I’ll miss you, too.” Not “Maybe it’s not over.” Just “I know.” Addison never liked to bullshit anyone.
The other day on the beach, I was thinking how we all get old, but Addison stays young and perfect forever. Lucy Lim likes to remind me about all the art that Addison left in the world. Like it’s a calling card to remember her by. Lucy’s a glass-half-full kind of girl. But I can’t help seeing a no-Addison world as half empty. She’ll always touch the deepest places of my memory, the places you turn over just to feel that bruise and know that it’s gone, she’s gone, and none of it’s ever coming back.
ERICKSON MCAVENA: Addison Stone was my one true friend in the big bad city, and I was hers. Her boys came and went, but I stayed, along with her beloved Lucy “Lulu” Lim. I’ll tell you something: in some ways, I reckon I knew Addison better than Lucy did. I knew bright, shiny, photo-ready, outer-shell Addison, but I also knew soft, fierce, inside-core Addison. And that all added up to a complicated girl.
We met that very first week we got to the city. We were both living on the seventh floor of windowless, mushroom-carpeted Esther Lloyd-Jones Hall, which is part of Pratt’s student housing. “Where charm goes to die,” my boyfriend, Teddy, joked. Addison had landed at Pratt—and, bigger picture, in New York—with a splash, but I hadn’t cottoned onto any of that. I had my own shit; I’d just left home—I guess the technical term is “run away”—to live with Teddy.
So I was holed up illegally in the dorm. My parents had cut off my credit card, and I was far from the comforts of Kentucky. The McAvenas are a “name” in Kentucky—if you ever ate a McAvena ham, bless your stars, you’ve generously contributed to the local dynasty. I myself haven’t touched pork since I was eight. As a g*y Democrat vegetarian anti-NRA activist, I’m in opposition to just about every dirty little secret that the McAvena name stands for, no matter the benefits.
And the McAvena name couldn’t buy me a two-egg special in New York City. I wasn’t supposed to start classes at NYU until that fall. I was in limbo. Look, I ended up patching up all my drama with my folks by September. But that summer, it was drama central.
I was a hothead, squeezed into that hamster-cage dorm room with Teddy, who was equally tense, convinced he was gonna be kicked out of Pratt for illegally housing me. I’d met Teddy the year before at Episcopal, which is a boarding school down in Virginny. Two Southern g*y boys meet-cute in photography lab, a pair of Mapplethorpe wannabes. My decision to go to NYU was partway to be close to Teddy. But now we were too close, sharing 300 square feet.
So here I was, raging to my friends on the phone all day. Raging at Teddy all night. One morning comes a knock on the door. I open it to find this slinky girl with licorice eyes and black hair in two shiny braids. She gives me a once-over and says, “Hey, loud, spoiled Southern boy pissed with the world, here’s a cuppa coffee. Now show me what you’re working on. Teddy says when you’re not bitching at everyone, you take good pictures.”
Addison and Erickson, courtesy of Ted Furlong.
LUCY LIM: Erickson McAvena was Addy’s lifeline. She was just starting to date Zach, but Addy unfortunately always expected the worst of Zach. I think because her dad was a womanizer, and she knew Zach was, too. So even while Addy was crushing on Zach, she kept him at a distance. He was up on this pedestal, but it was also a pedestal of suspicion.
“Zach’s a playboy,” she’d tell me. “He’s way over-serviced. He’s got a personal tailor in Hong Kong who flies into New York and makes him a dozen new shirts each season. He speaks five languages, Lulu! That’s just way too many shirts and languages!” In the beginning, Addy loved being seen with Zach, and with his wingman, Alexandre, and basking in the stir they all caused. I think Zach took equal delight as a co-star in the Zach-and-Addy show. They both fed off it.
Erickson was a big personality, too, but he was calm and strong in the center. I love that guy; we’ll always be in touch, we’ll always share a bond. The week she met him, Addy wrote me this email, which I printed and saved.
From: Addison Stone <[email protected]>
Date: Jul 23 at 12:07 PM Subject: hi / more
To: Lucy Lim <[email protected]>
Thing is, LL, I can be alone while being with Erickson.
We are togetherness in solitude.
On our long walks through the parks.
Or in a tapas bar. In a bookstore,
I am happy in his unfazed Southern company.
The sweet and sleepy St. Bernard eyes.
The tender stories about his screwed-up parents—who sound just like mine.
How he escaped them—just like me.
But always kept his sunshine—just like I want to.
Scarred but not damaged.
Erickson cooks me his Kentucky home recipes in the crummy Pratt kitchen.
Pecan muffins, succotash, sweet potato pie.
And his pictures. Images that should be sad. Poor old men on the subway and crazy pigeon ladies.
Erickson finds the true, deep kind. The sweetness and the real.
He can’t replace you, Lulu.
But he’s got your way of making me lean into peace whenever I see red.
Please Help, a photograph by Erickson McAvena.
LUCY LIM: She never got as close to anyone else in the city. Lincoln, off and on. Marie-Claire, sometimes. But Lincoln had a lot of emotional barricades mixed up with his passion, and Marie-Claire could be selfish. Erickson was all heart, all for her, always.
MARIE-CLAIRE BROYARD: I’m a New York born-and-bred daughter of, yes, that Broyard family. At this time, I’m not in school. You could say I’m between schools. I was at USC for a semester. Alas, I wasn’t meant for California. So I’m still living in New York. Enjoying my exalted place in the cosmos, I suppose. But enough about me when here’s what you want to hear: my fabulous Addison Stone story.