Page 1 of Fifth Avenue Fling

ONE

Clodagh

KLO-Da. The ‘gh’ is silent. Like Yoda with acl.

New York, home to Broadway, bagels, and billionaires. Lots of billionaires. Everyone’s on their A game here. Who wouldn’t want a slice of that Big Apple pie?

I’m here for mine.

Back in my Irish seaside village, I dreamed of this slice. I knew what to expect.

Yoga in Central Park at dawn.

Breakfast at Magnolia Bakery.

Cocktails at the top of the Rockefeller Center.

Waking up in a penthouse suite at The Plaza hotel with a brooding six-foot-something gazillionaire’s head between my legs whoinsistsI soak in his hot tub, but only after he delivers multiple five-star orgasms.

“Clodagh.”

“What?” I jerk my head up from wiping Guinness-marinated crisps off the hardwood bar top to see my best friend Orla’s smug smile.

She stops sweeping for a moment. “It’s your turn to do the men’s.”

Gah. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” I bark.

Here’s another fact about New York—it’s also home to hundreds of Irish bars. You’re never more than a block away from one. Irish bars with men who operate their dicks like heavy-duty fire hoses after a few pints.

I eyeball the three lads propped on stools along the bar. Their clothes are covered in dust from their construction jobs because the closest thing the pub has to a dress code isno guns.

Liam, Declan, and Aidan—regulars at The Auld Dog, the small Queens-based Irish bar Orla and I have worked in for three months. Nice guys in their late twenties. They smile back shamelessly. They’re on their third pint each, and I know they’ve left a war zone for me to clean. They know it, and I know it.

Every evening, they sit on the same barstools. Never changing stools. Never changing drinks. Never changing Irish bars.

What’s the point of moving to New York to spend every night in the same Irish bar, with the same Irish people, drinking the same Irish drinks?

I don’t get it. I’ve wanted to live in New York for as long as I can remember.

Not on the outskirts, either. Right bang in the heart of the Big Apple, Manhattan, strutting around the streets in Manolo Blahniks and flashing a well-shaved leg to hail down a yellow cab.

In reality, since Orla and I moved to Queens from Ireland a few months ago, I’ve spent 95 percent of my time working at Orla’s Uncle Sean’s pub, arguing with Orla about whose turn it is to change the barrel or fumigate the men’s toilets. I wear sports shoes since Manolos are beyond my budget, and even if I could afford them, I’d be waddling like a penguin.

But that 5 percent, when I see a glimpse of glitzy New York, the life I imagined back in Ireland?

Priceless.

Like the glitzy Manhattanite who has just walked into the bar. The guy looks in his mid-fifties, at a guess, and is wearing an expensive blue suit. People only visit the pub in suits if they’ve been to a funeral. An authentic, no-frills Irish experience is what Sean sells.

He’s the kind of man Mam would lose her shit over. Granny Deirdre, too. Do handlebar mustaches and comb-overs become a turn-on at a certain age? Call me superficial, but those aren’t things I want between my legs.

I see the exact moment the mild stench of stale beer and old-man smell wafts up his nostrils.

Orla stops sweeping, gawks at the newcomer in the doorway, then turns to me with wide eyes.

I roll my eyes as she hurries behind the bar to join me. While the guy screams tips, she couldn't have been any more obvious if she jumped onto the counter and did a victory dance.

He scans the pub, taking in the Irish football jerseys lining the walls, the flags, and the road signs telling you how many miles you are from Ireland. All part of Uncle Sean’s interior design strategy to fill every inch of the pub with reminders of home.

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