Tales From Heller

For Service And Devotion

While Pranav did not have a private jet, what he did have was a smooth trajectory via BART to SFO, and he'd be damned if he didn't tap into their treasury for biweekly business trips. He felt so professional—he could wake up early one morning, put on a suit, grab a coffee, board a train, and a few hours later be on a plane for Chicago or San Diego or wherever his fellow professionals went. He blended into the crowd, too, and nobody questioned why he looked a bit young. This weekend, his destination was Los Angeles, and from there, UCLA, Caltech, the Claremont schools, and Occidental. It was a bit petty, he thought, that Frank vetoed creating an USC branch, just to spite Tom and to throw Juliet a bone, but it was a small concession and one Pranav did not feel like arguing.

Pranav had taken a morning flight, and Juliet met him for lunch at the campus hotel after he had stowed away his luggage. It was the most professional-seeming restaurant on campus, and they took an outdoor table where they could take in the fresh air and blend in with the herd.

"It's so nice that people wear formalwear all the time here," Juliet began. "I feel less special that way—good special, yes, but it's not like I'm actively sending a message."

"Fitting wear for Madame President, if I should be calling you that—that election was a feather in our cap, and I thank you again for your efforts."

"Juliet is fine, Pranav—we knew each other in high school."

"I still outrank you, you know," Pranav laughed. "I know that we didn't talk much in high school, but we both knew Frank—obviously in different ways—in a way, we're equals. Just because we didn't give you a special title doesn't mean you're worth anything less, and UCLA is a very prestigious office."

"Why even bring that up if you don't mean anything by it? Look, I know things haven't been perfect here: that election was a bit of a circus, and despite our best efforts to gather kompromat on my peers I don't think I'm going to have a ton of political influence, but things haven't been going poorly. I've been doing a good job," Juliet said assertively, taking a delicate sip of her ice water.

"Oh, I don't mean anything by it—you assume too much of me. I'm just saying that, you know, my personal feelings aside I always have to make decisions that are in all our best interest. You've been doing well, but all I wanted was to clarify that we're happy. I know I shouldn't be telling you this, but I will since we were classmates and we both know Frank: there have been some other executives, ones not from Heller who didn't know much about your track record and ambition there, who wonder why we give you any more special treatment than any other campus head. Now I think they only spread those rumors so in the future they can get ahead, but they act very sweetly to me—appealing to my good nature, telling me stories of their own prowess—and at the end they sneak in: 'compared to Juliet...' or 'speaking of UCLA, I was just wondering...'. And they always make it sound like they don't mean anything by it, but I can tell. I can always tell."

If someone had asked Pranav at the beginning of the year why Juliet was being treated better than any other, he'd have given a lot of reasons that had less to do with Juliet herself but that she had legacy status as an executive at Heller. It was unclear to him if she had actually done much to improve things at Heller or if it was merely the universe revolving around Frank, but she certainly hadn't done anything to undermine the integrity of the system, and they had gotten this far with her in charge. And there was also the idea that Frank wouldn't have stood for it if anyone had said Juliet was an average club member at the end of the day who had shown no potential for her own leadership, and if Frank weren't on board with something, that would be a public relations disaster for the ages. So all through the year he had gone waiting for Juliet to slip up in some way as UCLA club president, but nothing ever came. She had managed to hold it together, and maybe it was easier than he thought to maintain the status quo, but when the club kept growing and when she had become USAC president, Pranav was willing to admit it was the right decision. He figured that in his defense, he had a front-row seat to the shenanigans at Heller and consequently Juliet's personality; now, obviously she had hardened over the years, but at least he wasn't preemptively dismissing her like the others. Were they sexist? Pranav figured it wasn't his call.