Her Name Is Rose by Christine Breen

the fungus plenty to think about. It was worth a try. She jotted that down on a scrap of paper. In another article she read about an organic gardener’s experiments with a homeopathic remedy called Helix tosta, made from crushed baked snail shells, to keep slugs at bay. Her blog readers, when she gets any, might like that.
    When she arrived into Heuston Station she’d been feeling absurdly positive. The possibility of rescuing her boxwood and protecting her plants from slugs (and the birds from poison) lifted her heart. In a small thing there can be hope. She focused on the thought of saving the box hedge and for a time raked aside all the rest of it. She’d ask Tommy Ryan next time he was passing for a load of manure. Standing in the taxi queue, she imagined how much she would need for a ten-square meters. But the moment she entered the taxi and as it took her along the bus lane beside the quays heading toward O’Connell Bridge, and cars honked, she lost her sense of hope. As the taxi approached Trinity College her heart raced. The crowds along Dawson Street seemed to be racing, too, all on urgent missions of their own. Camera-laden tourists stood before the great oak doors to the college, snapping photos. Students jostled, rushing to end-of-term exams.
    Iris asked the driver to let her out at the front gates. She paid, then walked slowly under the arch and out along the cobblestone path of the courtyard toward the bell tower straight ahead. She skirted its perimeter, remembering the myth that it was bad luck to walk beneath its dome. This she knew from her days as a student there. She’d planned to walk through the campus and exit right out onto Kildare Street but in choosing this path, she’d tempted fate. She knew it. Luke was everywhere, everywhere around her. His presence, like the ringing of the Trinity bell, was loud and clear and reverberated through her whole being. She nearly lost her footing on the cobbles when the clock rang noon. On a bench not far away she sat, laid her basket at her feet, and closed her eyes, feeling the vibrations of the chimes.
    Iris had met Luke on a rainy afternoon when she was waiting for the 46A bus. Her first glimpse of him was walking, a long, grounded stride and sheltering under a black umbrella. He’d been heading down Pearse Street, toward the seafront to his home, he later told her. As she waited, herself umbrellaless, protecting her books from the heavy rain, a notebook slipped from her bundle onto the edge of the pavement, just as he was passing. In that instant while Iris considered how to retrieve her book without tumbling more books, Luke had stopped and snatched it up. Rainwater gathered quickly in the gutter. Years later when they told the story to Rose, Iris said Luke had bumped her accidentally on purpose, but Luke said Iris had dropped the book just as she saw him coming. “I think your mother imagined she was dropping a handkerchief.” And Rose laughed.
    â€œHere you are,” Luke had said, shaking the book free, and, satisfied it wasn’t too wet, he’d landed it gingerly onto the pile she was holding. His smile intoxicated her.
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œWaiting for a bus?”
    â€œI am. Forty-six A. Going to Ranelagh.” Iris squared her books together. “You?”
    â€œNo,” he said without moving and holding the umbrella high enough to include her. “Trinity?”
    â€œAh-huh.” She nodded. “First year.”
    â€œMe, too … but not first year.” He moved closer. It looked as if he was going to wait with her. Submerged under a sudden wave of warmth Iris was caught for words. Even though she was eighteen she was not very experienced with the currency of flirting.
    â€œA rucksack might be a wise investment,” he continued, “if you’re going to be leaving home without an umbrella, that is. This is Dublin. You know the saying. We have four seasons: rain, rain,