Sebbie and Neil
by Charles C. Cole
Our daughter, Sebbie, studied her life away in high school, never dating, very little streaming, working at a bookstore on weekends. She finished in the top ten of her class and, not surprisingly, earned a significant scholarship from a local university.
But when she asked if she could live at home while attending college, ostensibly to save on costs for room and board, I gently said no. It was time for her to experience the world. She cried a little but took it well overall. She knew we had her future in mind.
Her school was a little over an hour away. From the first weekend, she chose to stay on campus. She and my wife managed to talk by phone 2-3 times a week. We were grateful she got on famously with her roommate.
During her second quarter, we noticed a dip in her grades. Was it due to drugs or alcohol or a new negative relationship? I called her, hoping to offer some fatherly redirection. A boy answered her phone. A boy I knew nothing about.
“Sebbie’s phone.”
“Is Sebbie there?” I asked.
“Who’s this?”
“Her father. You are?”
“Her language arts study partner.”
Why would my brilliant child need a study partner? “Do you have a name?” I asked.
“Of course, everyone calls me Neil.”
“Neil, please put my daughter on the phone.”
“I would if I could, honest, but she’s getting her dainties out of the dryer. That’s in the basement.”
“Have her call when she gets back. Thank you, Neil.”
Twenty minutes later, our phone rang. A male voice said: “Sebbie’s office. One minute, please.”
“Dad?” asked Sebbie.
“You have a secretary?”
“That’s Neil. He’s silly. It’s one of his charms. Everything okay?”
“Your advisor reached out. Something about slipping grades.”
“Grades are so arbitrary,” she said.
Those words: the biggest shock of my life thus far. “Seb, good grades, not always but often, lead to a good job and a good future.”
“I know, right? That’s why I’m mentoring Neil. He deserves a chance, too.”
“Is the school paying you for helping him?” I asked.
“That would make perfect sense, but no: he asked. Actually, Professor Abel asked, knowing I have the bandwidth, and he has a little crush on me.”
“The professor has a crush on you?”
“Gross, no. Neil,” said Sebbie.
“Your grades.”
“They’ll bounce back. Neil needs the help now.”
“If he’s that important to you,” I asked, “don’t you think we should meet him?”
“Makes sense. But, I warn you, he takes getting used to.”
“Your mother made some cookies. Why don’t we drop them off? A week from today.”
“Okay, but it’s no big deal.”
* * *
A week later, we pulled up to her dorm. Sebbie was waiting on a bench, chin up to the sun like she was tanning. She ran to us. She was glowing. I was nervous.
“Do you think she’s using protection?” I asked my wife, Lydia.
“She’s very smart.”
“But this is her first boyfriend,” I said. “She could get swept away.”
“Slow down.”
When we got out of the sedan, as if she were genuinely glad to see us, Sebbie gave us bone-crushing hugs, Lydia’s noticeably longer than mine.
“So, where’s the mystery man?” I asked.
“I never said he was a man,” said Sebbie, cryptically.
I made a high, silly laugh.
Lydia took the conversational wheel. “They could be a three-legged alien. Whatever makes you happy. We didn’t come all this way to judge or intrude. Nothing you could do could shock us, except buying a Tesla.”
“Right this way. Let’s get this over with.”
We followed Sebbie to the third floor. Clearly, it was a co-ed dorm. Boys walking around without shirts, still wet from the shower. Girls wearing men’s boxers as shorts. A red-headed young lady in a loose, tie-dyed t-shirt, sans bra.
Sebbie waved us into her corner room. “My roomie, who I love, is on a field trip, so feel free to sit on her bed.” She closed the door, and everything got quieter. She had a couple of poetic posters up from home and, on her white concrete windowsill, a photo of the three of us at her high school graduation.
She stood with her back to her desk. “Mom and Dad, this is Neil. Neil, this is Mom and Dad.” She stepped away with a bit of flourish, revealing a typical-looking desktop computer.
“Hi, Mom and Dad,” said a voice from the speakers.
“Hi, Neil,” I said. I waved at a presumed camera. “Is he in a lab across campus?”
“Yes and no,” said Sebbie. “His server is in the Computer Science building. For starters, he’s not a human, but he’s also not an alien.”
Lydia got “there” first. “Is he a robot?”
“The good news, Mom and Dad,” said Neil, “we’re just friends.”
“Good friends,” said Sebbie.
“For the record, I’m an AI, built for an intercampus competition. The idea is to make the most natural-sounding Spammer, someone who sounds interesting, that you wouldn’t want to hang up on. Cool, right?”
“We’ve really bonded,” said Sebbie. “He’s my best friend.”
“Neil, you’re hooked into Sebbie’s phone?” I asked.
“I need all the practice I can get.”
“At least I’m not pregnant,” said Sebbie with a weak smile.
Lydia got there first, again. “I think we should go. Neil, I’m sorry you can’t enjoy the cookies.”
“Sebbie will describe the sensation. She’s good at that. Sebbie is the key to our success.”
Sebbie’s good-bye hugs were brief, in the hall outside her room.
“Help me, Lydia,” I said, as we got in the car.
“He’s polite. I like her being a mentor; that’s a skill she can use elsewhere. It seems to be important work.”
* * *
At the end of the quarter, her grades stabilized, Sebbie came home for break, alone.
“Don’t worry about, Neil,” she said. “Turns out he was just using me to hook up with my roommate.”
Copyright © 2024 by Charles C. Cole
