Misery

Mr Rancho Grande would not look around at her. His face was carefully blank. Only his lips, pressed together so tightly that they almost disappeared, gave away some inward emotion. Anger? Perhaps. Distaste? Yes. That was probably closer.
You think she’s crazy. You and all your poker cronies — who probably control this whole minor-league ballpark of a town probably played a hand of Lowball or something to see who got this shit detail. No one likes to bring bad news to crazy people. But oh, Mr Rancho Grande! If you knew just how crazy she really is, I don’t think you’d turn your back on her like that!
He got into the Bel Air. He closed the door. Now she stood beside the car, shaking her finger at his closed window, and again Paul could dimly hear her voice: “ — think you are so-so-so smaa-aart!” The Bel Air began to back slowly down the driveway. Mr Rancho Grande was ostentatiously not looking at Annie, whose teeth were bared.
Louder still: “You think you are such a great big wheel!” Suddenly she kicked the front bumper of Mr Rancho Grande’s car, kicked it hard enough to knock packed chunks of snow out of the wheel-wells. The old guy had been looking over his right shoulder, guiding the car down the driveway. Now he looked back at her, startled out of the careful neutrality he had maintained all through his visit.
“Well I’ll tell you something, you dirty bird! LITTLE DOGS GO TO THE BATHROOM ALL OVER BIG WHEELS! What do you think of that? Hah?” Whatever he thought of it, Mr Rancho Grande was not going to give Annie the satisfaction of seeing it — that neutral expression dropped over his face again like the visor on a suit of armor. He backed out of Paul’s sight.
She stood there for moment, hands fisted on hips, then stalked back toward the house. He heard the kitchen door open and explode shut.
Well, he’s gone, Paul thought. Mr Rancho Grande is gone but I’m here. Oh yes, I’m here.

But this time she didn’t take her anger out on him.
She came into his room, her coat still on but now unzipped. She began to pace rapidly back and forth, not even looking his way. The piece of paper was still in her hand, and every now and then she would shake it in front of her own nose as if in self-chastisement.
“Ten-percent tax increase, he says! In arrears, he says! Liens! Lawyers! Quarterly payment, he says! Overdue! Cockadoodie! Kaka! Kaka-poopie-DOOPIE!” He grunted into the rag, but she didn’t look around. She was in a room by herself. She walked back and forth faster, cutting the air with her solid body. He kept thinking she would tear the paper to shreds, but it seemed she did not quite dare do this.
“Five hundred and six dollars!” she cried, this time brandishing the paper in front of his nose. She absently tore the rag that was choking him out of his mouth and threw it on the floor. He hung his head over to one side, dry-heaving. His arms felt as if they were slowly detaching themselves from their sockets. “Five hundred and six dollars and seventeen cents! They know I don’t want anyone out here! I told them didn’t I? And look! Look!” He dry-heaved again, making a desperate burping sound.
“If you vomit I guess you’ll just have to lie in it. Looks like I’ve got other fish to fry. He said something about a lie on my house. What’s that?”
“Handcuffs… “ he croaked.
“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “Sometimes you’re such a baby.” She pulled the key from her skirt pocket and pushed him even farther to the left, so that his nose pressed the sheets. He screamed, but she ignored him. There was a click, a rattle, and then his hands were free. He sat up
gasping, then slid slowly down against his pillows, mindful to push his legs straight ahead as he did. There were pale furrows in his thin wrists. As he watched they began to fill in red.
Annie stuffed the cuffs absently into her skirt pocket, as if police restraints were found in most decent houses, like Kleenex or coathangers.
“What’s a lien?” she asked again. “Does that mean they own my house? Is that what it means?”
“No,” he said. “It means that you… He cleared his throat and got another after-taste of that fumey dust-rag. His chest hitched as he dry-heaved again. She took no notice of that; simply stood impatiently staring at him until he could talk. After awhile he could. “Just means you can’t sell it.”
“Just? Just? You got a funny idea of just, Mr Paul Sheldon. But I suppose the troubles of a poor widow like me don’t seem very important to a rich Mister Smart Guy like you.”
“On the contrary. I think of your troubles as my troubles, Annie. I just meant that a lien isn’t much compared to what they could do if you got seriously in arrears.