Chapter 2: Plant response to elevated CO2 - DRUM - University of ...

Wooden tables. Waiters in uniformed grey‐blue shorts and shirt with madras café
embroidered in red lapels. Steaming coffee served in stainless steel tumblers and saucers
and the careful swipe of crumbs by the boy who cleans the tables and then a quick swish
of the same napkin on the green formica table top. Meenu would always wait for the
dampness to disappear before resting her elbows on the table again. I never bothered
about such things.
But there is no point telling Raj this. He is much too lost in his world of Japanese
animation and dance to think of these issues. And he doesn’t have to go to
Western Union every month transferring dollars over transcontinental wires. I
try to return to my homework for the cell biology class.
After spending more than twenty minutes on it, I leave the sixth answer
halfway. Tomorrow, I decide, I shall ask Angela about it. Right now, it’s too late
to call her. I drop the books I will need for my classes in my Jansport bag, which
we bought at the Thanksgiving Day sale. The day after Thanksgiving, at six in
the morning, bleary eyed, we were standing in the huge line outside Bestbuy.
Kapil − for the first time − had agreed to take us all in his car without charging
for petrol, or should I now say gas? That day when I remembered to get in the
right side of the driver’s seat and put on the seat belt, I felt I was getting used to
my life here,. Almost after six months. I pull out clothes from the pile lying near
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