Sleeping with Anemone Read Online Free

going to get any deeper, I waited until their gazes drifted back in my direction, then said testily, “It’s Uniworld, okay? I get it.”
    “What was that?” Guard Number One asked, cupping a hand around his ear. “Did I hear someone say Uniworld?”
    His partner, watching people come up the aisle, began speaking out of the side of his mouth. “So tell me, little lady. You think it’s polite to go around bad-mouthing the nice people letting you advertise your business here?”
    Nice people?
    “Give me a break,” I said. “I’m paying Uniworld a hefty fee for this space. Do you think it’s polite of them to sell dairy products loaded with hormones? Do you want your family drinking milk that could cause serious health issues down the road? How do you look in a bra? Because you’ll need one when you start to grow breasts.”
    “Okay, here’s how it is,” Guard Number One said, leaning on his paws again, as the other guard discreetly felt his chest for signs of growth. “Stop with the petition and you get to stay at your booth. Otherwise, we show you the door. Got it?”
    Hugging the clipboard against my chest, I scowled at him.
    “I said”—he leaned closer, bathing me in onion breath—“do you got it?”
    “Fascist bullies!” Tara shouted suddenly, jumping to her feet. “Stop harassing my aunt!”
    “Hey,” the guard said to her, holding up his palms, “calm down, there!”
    Tara wasn’t about to calm down. Now she had a cause, too. Climbing onto our table, she cried, “Hey, everyone! Look at the big apes Uniworld sent to harass my aunt! Harassment!”
    “Get her down from there,” the first guard said to me, looking ready to spit nails.
    “Help!” Tara cried as the second guard reached for her. “Kidnappers! Call the FBI!”
    “No one is kidnapping you,” the guard said, trying to smile as a gathering crowd looked on. “You wanna come down off that table, please, little missy?”
    “Make me!” Tara yelled, and began to chant, “Fascist bullies!”
    The first guard snarled at me, “You stop her now or I’m gonna haul the both of you off to the security office while I call in the cops.”
    Yikes. That was publicity I didn’t need. “Tara,” I said, “stop. You’re not helping.”
    “They wouldn’t dare hurt us, Aunt Abby,” she called. “We have witnesses. Hey, everyone! Come look—”
    “Tara Kathleen Knight, come down at once!” a voice from the aisle called.
    Tara froze as my mom elbowed her way to the front to give her granddaughter her most glacial glare. “Come down this instant, young lady.”
    Tara climbed down meekly. Maureen “Mad Mo” Knight was not to be disobeyed.
    “Now, then,” Mom said, using her steely teacher’s glare to gaze from me to the security guards, “what’s going on here?”
    “These men want me to hand over my petition,” I said, showing her the clipboard.
    Mom looked it over. “I see,” she said thoughtfully, then turned toward the guards. “How did you hear about this petition? Did someone complain?”
    “Yeah, we got complaints,” the first guard said smugly.
    “Complaints from whom?” Mom asked, looking quite smart in her tan wool coat trimmed in brown leather, brown slacks, and brown boots.
    The guards exchanged glances, as though they couldn’t decide whether they should be answering or asking the questions. “Our employer,” one of them said.
    “And your employer is . . . ?” Mom asked, continuing her interrogation.
    “Uniworld,” the first guard answered, raising his chin.
    “I see,” Mom said, standing with arms akimbo. “In other words, Uniworld is against the Constitution of the United States.”
    The two guards glanced at each other in bewilderment as a murmur of amusement went through the crowd. My mom hadn’t spent six years teaching eighth grade civics for nothing.
    “What’s the Constitution got to do with this?” Guard Number Two asked, breaking open a package of jelly beans. His partner followed