Laura Lippman - The Most Dangerous Thing

In the kitchen, she puts the water on to boil, shakes a cigarette out of the pack, which she leaves here at night so she won’t be tempted to smoke in bed. When rheumatoid arthritis was finally diagnosed-after three years of chasing so many other demons and diagnoses-she was advised that smoking was a risk factor and she should quit. “But I’ve got it already,” she told the doctor. “Can’t unring the bell, can I?” Her fingers are knobby and stiff; lighting the cigarette off the burner and getting it to her lips requires effort. But it’s worth it. Smoking’s one of those pleasures that never dims. Smoking and orgasms, and Rita’s resigned to the fact that the only orgasms in her future will be thanks to her Medicaid-subsidized massage tool, applied to one of the few places where she feels no pain.

The aches started about eight years ago, moody and intermittent. Rita assumed they were occupational, as did most doctors. She had spent decades carrying trays, scrubbing down tables. Something was bound to give, and she’d have chosen tendinitis over varicose veins any day. Rita took good care of her legs. She would come home from work, prop them up on the coffee table, coax her guy into rubbing them, applying cream, promising there would be rubbing in his future, a promise she always kept. Rita was no tease. Funny, Rick did the best job, bone tired as he was after a day at the garage. Larry had him beat in bed, but Rick-well, Rick knew what it felt like to put in a hard day’s work, while Larry didn’t have a clue. Yeah, Rick was the better man all around. But she didn’t love him, and it would have been wrong, staying with him only because he treated her well. If you don’t love a man and you stick it out with him, you’re little better than a whore in Rita’s book, whether it’s his paycheck or his love or a roof that’s keeping you with him. Even if Larry hadn’t resurfaced, she would have ended up cheating on Rick.

Not that she counts Larry as cheating. She wishes she could have done it more gracefully, not let things get so nasty between her and Rick. But she doesn’t regret doing it. Rita doesn’t regret anything.

The water boils as she finishes her cigarette. Her hands cushioned in oven mitts, she manages to pour most of the water in her cup, splashing only a little on the counter. But the jar of Folgers mocks her, its lid unbudgeable. She thinks about the ease with which she opened those huge jars back in Connolly’s, how she was the one who could get any top off. Where’s her gripper? Joey has given her an assortment of tools and devices, but she constantly misplaces them. She’ll catch herself in the act time and again, putting something down and thinking, Oh, I shouldn’t put that there, I’ll never remember, even as another part of her brain chimes in: But you can’t forget this spot, it’s such an unlikely place. Sure enough, when she goes looking for something, she remembers she put it in an unlikely spot, just not what that spot was. She’s got to have a jolt of caffeine. She will have to search her bungalow for the gripper, and small as the place is, her water will probably be cold by the time she finds it.

Rita moved to Florida, real Florida as she thought of it, shortly after Larry turned out to be Larry. Unreliable, incapable of holding down a real job, no interest in being a father to his son. She had no one but herself to blame-and no interest in doing so. She tried to make a go of it with her kid’s real father, a man she loved. How can that be wrong? She relocated to Boca Raton with Joey and a guy who seemed steady. She was trying to be pragmatic again, but the guy didn’t last, as it turned out. Other men came and went in the little bungalow. One stayed five years, the rest were more short-term. Joey never minded, although he liked it better when it was just the two of them. No, Rick was the one who raised a fuss, back when she first left. He challenged her for custody, and she pulled out her ace in the hole, said he wasn’t Joey’s father anyway. A judge laid it out for Rick: He could act like Joey’s parent, keep paying support, have a relationship with him. Or he could walk away, scot free. Either way, he couldn’t have custody and he couldn’t force Rita to stay in Baltimore. So what did that sap do? He decided to keep paying, so she would at least send Joey up there for a couple of visits a year.

Maybe Rick deserves a little credit for how Joey turned out. Her son stayed in Florida, although he lives down in Fort Lauderdale, married a nice girl, who looks a little like Rita in her prime, has three kids. He visits every weekend, fights her battles for her-got her on SSI disability, arranged for cheaper drugs, found whatever agencies to assist her. Now here’s a kid who has every right to hate her, and he rocks steady. It’s Mickey who barely picks up a phone. What ails the girl? She doesn’t call her brother, either, and has never even seen her nieces and nephew, except in pictures. Joey shrugs it off. “We’re just not that close, Ma. I’m ten years younger, and we moved away when I was eight, leaving her in Baltimore.”

“So why did you give her the bed?” Man, that bugs her.

“I had to drive a rental truck up there anyway, to bring back stuff from Dad’s house. And we couldn’t give that thing away on Craigslist. Why not give it to Mickey? It was nice to see her, even if it was for Dad’s funeral.”

Rick died at the age of seventy last year. A stroke, out of nowhere, and no way to prepare for it. A weakness somewhere, maybe lurking there for years and then- kaboom . Dudley Do-Right to the end, he included Joey in his will, despite having two kids with the namby-pamby he married. Maybe it’s because they’re both girls and Rick was very specific about the things he wanted Joey to have-tools, a Jet Ski. He left him a little money, too. Rita’s emotions were all over the place when she heard about Rick’s death. Sad, mocking, resentful. Joey decided to drive a U-Haul up there and bring back the things his not-father had left him, despite having little use for them. He’s not particularly handy, can’t fix anything for shit. He is Larry’s son.

Rita’s sixty-three now, but crabbed and wrecked as her body is, she never doubts she’s going to live a long time, even with the smoking. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” her doctor always says. “I mean, other than the rheumatoid arthritis. Your cholesterol’s good, your blood pressure is good.” He says it grudgingly, as if Rita doesn’t deserve any good health. That’s the thing about doctors. They secretly want to call the shots, decide who gets the good life, and it pisses them off when someone like Rita isn’t crushed by illness.

Rita walks through her house, checking surfaces low and high. It’s a tiny house, two bedrooms off an open area that contains the kitchen, dining nook, and living room. The Strawberry Hill apartment was bigger. Where did her grabber go? Again, all she remembers is the very thought- Well, this is a weird place to leave it. Ah, she spies it through the sliding glass doors that lead to a tiny patio, sitting on a wrought-iron table. That’s right. It was a pretty evening last night, warm but not hot, probably one of the last decent nights before full-on summer lands. Rita sat on the patio, eating an entire jar of cashews, rationalizing that she needed a treat. Her days of watching her figure are long gone, and although she’s not fat-Rita’s genes keep her lean, another thing that probably pisses her doctor off-she’s got a few rolls on her.

The patio door’s lock is sticky, hard to maneuver on her best days. It’s easier to slip out the front door and circle around, grab the grabber, and come back to the front door-which has locked behind her. Fuck . Her bones, her joints, whatever, didn’t begin to tell the story of how bad today was going to be. Given the nature of her relationships with the neighbors-she hates the one to the east, the one to the west hates her-she can’t see knocking on their doors at 7 A.M., asking to use the phone to call Joey. Who, bless him, would be here as fast as he can with her spare keys, no questions asked. She could walk to the Circle K and use the pay phone, but it would take her forever to shuffle that dusty mile. Plus, while her loose flowery nightgown and slippers pass muster for sitting on her front steps, it’s not an outfit that a sane woman wears walking down a busy street. She’d get picked up and taken in for a psych exam.