Should Have Known Better

“Ma’am, you picking up?” one of the women in the red vests behind the counter asked.

“Yes, I ordered prints a long time ago. I wonder if they’re still here.”

“You have your stub?”

“No. I’m sorry,” I said.

She took my information and said the prints were done. It would take her a minute to go in the back and find them.

“Can you wait?”

“I’ll be right out here,” I said, putting my basket on the floor.

“Only be a minute. I’m sure.”

The woman disappeared into the back room.

I stepped out of line and looked at the woman behind me.

“Twins?” I said, looking at her bulging belly.

“Twins,” the woman confirmed, smiling.

“I have twins, too,” I said. “A girl and a boy.”

“I’m having a girl and boy, too!”

“Oh, Lord, get ready! The drama will be in full swing from day one,” I said. “The key is to keep good people around you.”

“Why thanks,” the woman said. “I think we’re off to a good start.”

“Wait,” I said, noticing that her stomach was so big, there was no way she wasn’t at least in her eighth month. “What are you doing outside? You don’t need to be in anyone’s Target! You should be on bed rest. Trust me, it’s the last real rest you’ll ever get.”

She laughed.

“I know. I know. I’m taking it easy,” she said. “We just had our baby shower last weekend and people kept showing up with gifts we hadn’t ordered.”

“What a shame.”

“Yeah. Target’s baby registry got our names confused with a couple in Atlanta. Can you imagine, a couple with the same first and last names living in the same state?”

“That’s crazy!”

“I’m here to try to get Target to come and pick up these gifts. It was their computer error.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have to deal with that,” I said. I heard the woman who was helping me call for a representative to come to the back to help her.

Someone else called for the next person in line and the woman I was talking to stepped up to explain her situation. I watched as she spoke and pointed at the baby registry machines behind the waiting area.

The line grew longer, so I picked up my basket and went to stand by the machines until the woman who was helping me came back out front.

I looked at the registry machines thinking what an awful predicament the new mother was in.

“They really need to fix these machines. It’s a mess,” I said affectedly, as I tried to recall every instance of error I’d experienced with a Target registry machine. There were none. But then, out of nowhere, I remembered the conversation I’d had with Sharika at the library about that woman who killed herself. She found out while snooping at the Target baby registry her ex-husband was having a baby with someone else. “Why did she look up his name?” I remembered asking Sharika. I couldn’t remember if she answered or i

f the woman was real or from one of the books she’d read.

I looked at my watch. A manager had come out to talk to the pregnant woman. They pointed to the machines.