"What are you going to write about me?" Betty asks again. Today we're in the outdoor section at Cafe Paradiso, and I still don't have a good answer. She's sipping a Sprite, nibbling on a cappuccino bar and squinting her eyes at me.

She's got a gift for me today. She made me a tape of her favorite punk songs. In one of the songs where I can understand the words, the chorus goes "I wanna be unusual. I wanna be punk rock. I wanna be unusual."

She's looking around her at the Saturday crowd, mostly white, fleece-clad adults reading, playing chess and nursing mochas. "This place is so pretentious."

"Would you rather go to IHOP or Denny's?"

"No, it's okay. You probably like it here, don't you?"

She's still weighing the positives and negatives of getting together with Chris. It would be fun to sneak around, using the school newsletter, which they both write for, as an excuse.

Then again, if Jesse found out, he would kill them. Betty would be dropped from their group of friends. The boys in the group would never speak to her again. And the worst part, Jesse would be so hurt. Betty is his first pretend girlfriend. "Oh, I don't know what to do," she says, fumbling a cigarette out of her purse.

"See, I'm a terrible person, aren't I?"

She takes a drag from her cigarette and waits for me to answer the question we both know the answer to.

JAMIE PASSARO (LNF/ UO 2001) is a freelance writer and staffer at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association.