Words Across the Table

Definitions Still in Progress

1HOME. A place you can describe without searching. Before we moved from Chile to the United States, I could explain the quickest route to our apartment while eating a sandwich and arguing with my cousin. Here, I practice our street name before anyone asks for it. On my first afternoon at the recreation center, a registration form asks for my home address. I know exactly where I live. Somehow, the empty line suggests otherwise. Months later, I will remember that line more clearly than the color of our apartment door.

2RETURN. To send something back; also, to come again. During that first afternoon, I stand beside the table-tennis tables holding a borrowed paddle. A player points toward me and says something that ends with return. I picture an overdue object. He means the ball. At home that evening, I look up the word and discover several meanings crowded into one entry. I draw little arrows between them. The next week, when someone asks whether I will return on Thursday, I understand without reaching for the paddle. I keep the arrows anyway.

3PARTNER. Someone on your side of the table. Six weeks after the registration form, I play doubles with a girl named Tamsin. Between games, she asks about the word I mutter whenever I miss an easy shot. I explain it, then offer a less embarrassing Spanish word: otra, another. She tries it, placing the sound carefully, as if balancing a ball on her paddle. Her mistake makes me smile, but not because it is funny. For once, I am the person who can say, “Almost. Try it this way.”

4FLUENT. Able to move without stopping. This is not the definition in my school dictionary; it is the one I wrote in the margin during my first week. Yesterday, Tamsin and I argued cheerfully about whether a ball clipped the edge. I stopped twice to find words, and she waited twice. We settled nothing before the next serve. Afterward, I crossed out without stopping and wrote able to continue. The old words remain visible beneath the pencil line. I have not erased them. They belong to someone who arrived here carrying a paddle like a question.