Rita’s secret to living a long life is eating apples. She has 13 apple trees in her garden. She knows all the different types of apples, even the ones that look like cherries. Those ones are called small apples.

Rita says that she does not have any stories to tell about love. Rita has reflected on the reasons for this, she thinks it is because of her smile. When she was young, she had tiny teeth, tiny teeth like those of a mouse, and it was not pretty. Today, she has fake teeth.

Rita has many stories to tell.

Rita met a lot of men in the past. She used to sell ties for a living in a big Parisian shop. Then, she decided to quit and buy a little stall in the Vernaison flea market. There, she was photographed with Frederic Mitterand. Alain Delon also walked by her stall, but she did not find him good-looking. Everyone thought Rita was in love with the auctioneer, but Rita did not want him. One day, the auctioneer stood up and she realized that he had short legs: he was as small as when he sat down.

When she turned 30, Rita realized that all her friends were married. She did not understand why she was still single, why only the street workers were giving her smiles.
Rita was quite poor, and at times she would only eat a cucumber for lunch (it is not a big deal, she says that it is the secret to beautiful skin). One day, a man told her that she should go to the apple stall. The apple-seller was tall and he wore a hat. He seemed sad, he was called Raoul. Rita learned that his wife had recently died, and that he was depressed. Rita hates sadness, so she asked one of her friends to bring the poor guy some coffee. She asked him around for dinner, she wanted to make him think of something else. He was morose, oh, so morose! But despite this, they got married. She was 58 the day of her wedding in Soissons, and she wore a green dress. Two guests and one dog attended the wedding.

Raoul cheated on Rita for 9 years and she did not realize it. But the day she caught him, she left.

Rita keeps repeating that everything she says is the truth. She means it, because she does not like liars nor thieves. However, Rita loves laughing and helping people. Rita gives apples to all of her friends, she says it does not matter whether they have worms, you can always make an apple compote with them.