Perfect. Part 2

"Uh, you know it's pretty much a sure bet we'll get tested in the next few weeks.

The stuff you can get over the counter works. Do you have a GNC gold card?" Hint. Hint. Huff.

Lift. "That's what I use, and with the card it's not too pricey." A h.e.l.l of a lot cheaper than the real deal, but I don't add that part.

If he can't figure that out all by himself, he's even stupider than I thought.

Barbells accomplished, I move over to the weight machine, waiting for him to respond. Just about the time I think he's been struck mute, he says, Guess you're right about the p.i.s.s test. But after that, I still want the good s.h.i.+t.

I know you've got a line on them. Get me some, I'll make it worth your trouble. How about it?

Anger p.r.i.c.ks Like static, sharp and electric and urging me toward rage.

My biceps and quads already burn, and now my brain feels on fire too. And just as I decide to let myself blow, the door at the top of the stairs opens.

Sean! yells Aunt Mo. Your cell is ringing. And please turn down that G.o.d-awful music.

I abandon the weight bench, turn off my iPod. "Come on."

Bobby heels up the stairs.

(Good dog.) I point toward the front door. "See ya, dude."

I locate my now-silent phone.

Check messages. Find a voice mail from Cara, who wants to get together. For the first time today, everything's bomb.

Andre Marcus Kane III

Bomb Give most girls a way to describe me, that's what they'd say-that Andre Marcus Kane the third is bomb.

I struggle daily to maintain the pretense. Why must it be expected-no, demanded-of me to surpa.s.s my ancestors'

achievements? Why can't I just be a regular seventeen-year-old, trying to make sense of life? But my path has been preordained, without anyone even asking me what I want. n.o.body seems to care that with every push to live up to their expectations, my own dreams vaporize.

Don't Get Me Wrong I do understand my parents wanting only the best for me.

Am one hundred percent tuned to the concept that life is a h.e.l.l of a lot more enjoyable with a fast-flowing stream of money carrying you along.

I like driving a pricey car, wearing clothes that feel like they want to be next to my skin.

I love not having to be a living, breathing stereotype because of my color. Anytime I happen to think about it, I am grateful to my grandparents for their vision. Grateful to my mom for her smarts, to my dad for his bald ambition and, yes, greed.

Not to mention his unreal intuition. But I'm sick of being pushed to follow in his footsteps. Real estate speculation?

Investment banking? Neither interests me.

Too much at risk, and when you lose, you lose major.

I much prefer winning, even if it's winning small. I think more like my grandfather.

Andre Marcus Kane Sr.

embraced the color of his skin, refused to let it straitjacket him. He grew up in the urban California nightmare called Oakland, with its rutted asphalt and crumbling cement and frozen dreams, all within sight of sprawling hillside mansions.

I'd look up at those houses, he told

me more than once,

and think to myself, no reason why

that can't be me, living up there. No

reason at all, except

getting sucked down into the swamp.

Meaning welfare or the drug trade or even the tired belief that sports were the only way out.

I guessed I wanted a big ol' house on

the hill more than just

about anything. And I knew my brain

was the way to get it. Oh, what a brain!

My gramps started inventing

things in elementary school. Won awards

for his off-the-wall inventions in high school, and a full scholars.h.i.+p to Cal-Poly. He could have gone on to postgrad anywhere, except just about then he fell hard for my grandmother, Grace, a Kriol beauty from Belize. Never saw any girl

could match her, before

or since, he claims. G.o.d sent her to me.

Maybe. Who else would have encouraged Gramps's crazy ideas?

Telephones that didn't need wires?

Computers, in every American home?

Ambitious goals, especially in the sixties, when color TV was about as technological as most people got. But if Andre Kane believed it would come to pa.s.s, then so did his new wife, Grace. Gramps led the charge into the Silicon Valley.

He got his house on the hill. And then some.

Gramps's Obese Bank Account Came with taxes and bills. His kids-two boys and a girl-came with private school tuitions. Dad was oldest, and so came programmed with the Eldest Son Syndrome-a cla.s.sic overachiever, h.e.l.l-bent on making his own mark on the world, and a bigger one than his father's. Andre Marcus Kane Jr. had more than drive going for him. He had luck, eerie foresight, and brilliant timing. Right out of college, Dad became an investment banker, banking heavily on his own investments. His stock portfolio thrived. And somehow, he knew to dump everything right before the last time the market crashed.

So when things started to look iffy again, he went looking for other investments.

Lending is too easy

these days, I heard him tell Mom. You

can't keep giving those loans away.

Adjustable rate mortgages

are going to bring this country down.