The Day of the Donald by Andrew Shaffer Page B

Jimmie to wonder just what the hell kind of mess he’d gotten himself into this time. He was seated at a table with the most powerful men and women in the world . . . one of whom was a killer.

Chapter Twenty-Four

WWTDYL
    B efore the State Dinner, the best meal of Jimmie Bernwood’s life had been at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in downtown Atlanta.
    Cat, whom he was sort of dating at the time, was in Atlanta at one of those week-long journalism conferences. The kind with all the panels and workshops. Not Jimmie’s bag, but whatever.
    By day three on his own in New York, however, he’d run out of packaged food in his apartment and had wicked-smart blisters on his hands. From, uh, playing video games. Why not surprise his girl by driving thirteen hours straight and showing up at her hotel unannounced? A grand, romantic gesture.
    When Jimmie arrived at her hotel room, she’d answered the door in a robe, giggling deliriously. She looked at him first with confusion and then second with more confusion.
    “Hurry up, babe,” a man’s voice said from inside the hotel room. Jimmie could see a pair of naked feet on the bed, just over Cat’s bare shoulder. The naked, wrinkled feet . . . of a naked, wrinkled man. The hair on the back of Jimmie’s neck stood up. It was the hetero Spidey-sense every straight guy possesses that lets him know there’s an exposed penis in close proximity.
    “I’m sorry,” Cat whispered. “I thought you were—”
    “In New York?” Jimmie said.
    She shook her head. “I thought you were room service.”
    He could have given her a chance to explain herself, but what was going on seemed pretty self-explanatory. He could also have pushed her aside and confronted whoever she was sleeping with, but he didn’t know if he could control his anger. He was sure he would learn who the man was eventually (and he was right—it was that Pulitzer-winning prick, Lester Dorset).
    Jimmie stumbled backward, awkwardly, and then sprinted down the hall to the elevators. When the elevator door opened, a bellhop pushed a food cart out the door.
    “Room 1273?” Jimmie said.
    The bellhop nodded.
    “I’m taking it to go,” Jimmie said, shoving the cart back into the elevator. He pushed the CLOSE DOOR button and waved to the stunned bellhop as the elevator doors shuttered. Jimmie lifted the lid off one of the food trays. Salmon and rice. Not bad. He hadn’t eaten a thing since his journalist power lunch, which consisted of a banana and a hard-boiled egg swiped from coworkers’ lunch bags.
    He uncorked the pinot grigio that had been resting in the wine chiller and drank and drank and drank some more, riding the elevator up and down, up and down until he was thrown out of the hotel.
    That was a good meal.
    The State Dinner, however, was giving that stolen room-service meal some serious competition. The White House chef, Guy Fieri, had prepared an array of appetizers, culled from the finest fast-food joints in the DC area. They’d all provided the food gratis for the free advertising. No president had ever had sponsorship deals in place with fast-food restaurants before, but the United Stateshad never seen a president like Donald J. Trump before. It was all quite practical—and, dare to say, somewhat genius.
    For Jimmie, the best part was that it was all on the house. He wasn’t expected to tip the waitstaff even 10 percent. The White House was taking care of the bill.
    No, scratch that. The best part was when he spotted Cat Diaz seated at one of the press tables . . . and then she spotted him sitting next to the world’s two most powerful leaders.
    Jimmie raised his Miller Lite to her from across the room in a mock toast. He thought about dialing his smirk down a notch or two but couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was like those bracelets, the ones they sold in the White House gift shop: WWTDYL? (What Would Trump Do, You Loser?) . When Trump won—which he did often—he let people know about it.