I Am The Highway || Chris Cornell

Los Angeles California, Royaltone Studios June 14 2001

"Oh, Vada you are just so adorable," Tom smiles as Vada giggles and squeals, clapping her hands, bouncing herself on the studio floor. Rick Rubin who was sitting at the control board was busy recording Chris's vocals on the last track of the recording session. It had been a while since Tim, Brad and Tom had seen Vada so they wanted me to bring her along. Everytime she hears Chris sing she bounces so excitedly clapping and giggling.

"Ok Chris, you wanna do that last part again? Let me hear ya," Rick says as he pushes the intercom button. I look up through the studio window and Chris nods and gives me a cute wink as Rick starts the tape again.

"I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
I am not your blowing wind
I am the lightening
I am not your autumn moon
I am the night.... the night... the night...
yea... yea..."

Vada laughs and claps even more which makes me laugh.

"Ok, Chris that was awesome!" Rick calls over the intercom. Chris puts the headphones down and heads out of the recording room. As soon as he opens the door to come back into the control room, Vada immediately looks up at him with her big blue eyes and squeals, shifting her butt and crawling as fast as she could over to him.

"Hi peanut," Chris laughs as he picks her up and she squeals, as she claps her little hands smiling at him.

"Ok, so that was really good guys, I'll uh, send this off to get mixed as soon as I can. Did you guys figure out all the management stuff yet?" Rick asks as he spins around to face us in his chair.

"Uh, no we actually haven't... we're still under Q Prime management right now and we're trying to get out of the contract, but Chris's manager doesn't seem to want to budge on the issue at all, he seems to think we should go under his management but honestly... ugh! I don't know," Tom says as he crosses his arms in frustration sitting cross legged on the chair opposite of me on the couch. I look up at Chris and see him making the silliest faces at Vada, then every once and a while he'll lift up her cute little pink T-shirt with Simba from The Lion King on the front and blows on her tummy making noises and she laughs even harder.

"Chris?" Tom asks and Chris still continues to make Vada laugh.

"Chris?" Tom repeats.

"Uh huh yea? What?" Chris says and Vada leans herself into him, attempting to nibble his shoulder as she makes more babbly sounds drooling on his plain white fitted tank top.

"Management... you know..." Tom says and everyone looks up at Chris.

"Um... well yea, Jim's not budging and I know you guys aren't happy with Q Prime so why don't we just get a whole different manager? I mean it's not hard to fire management is it?" Chris says as he looks at Vada.

"Chris... it's a little more complicated than just saying 'you're fired'.  It's a binding contract... you usually have to pay a penalty or something to get out of it. But if someone else was to take over the contract, it would still be difficult but you wouldn't loose as much credibility," I say and everyone looks in my direction.

"Sorry, business talk... basically you just have to transfer the contract into another person's name and have them take over as management," I explain as Rick heads out of the control room

"Well I don't know... here's a thought, what if you took over as our manager," Tom says looking right at me and I completely thought he was making a joke.

"Right," I giggle.

"No really... you managed Soundgarden so why not us?" Tom says. I raise my eyebrow and look back up at Chris who was still busy playing with Vada. I then look back and forth between Tim, Brad and Tom and they all seemed to already have this idea ready to go before I even knew anything about it.

"You're not serious are you?" I giggle skeptically.

"We're completely serious," Tom says.

"But... I don't, I mean, we don't really know each other all that well..." I trail off and they all give me a disheartened look.

"That's not what I meant, I mean... are you sure you wouldn't want someone who would be a better fit? Maybe?"

"Are you saying you don't like us?" Brad smirks and I suddenly felt bad.

"No, no I'm not saying that -" I start to panic.

"Andi, it's alright, we get it if you don't want to... but you did such a good job with Soundgarden we just thought that you would be a perfect fit," Tom says. I feel absolutely flattered that they thought of me but, I don't know if I could. I look back over as Chris who was swaying Vada back and forth as she babbles so cutely and carrying on.

"Was this your idea?" I ask Chris skeptically.

"Nope," Chris says as he continues to make faces at Vada.

"It was all our idea," Tom says.

"But I don't work for Q Prime management or Rebel Waltz management so I would just be an outsider taking over," I explain. Rebel Waltz was Chris's management with Jim.

"Ok, so we go with an outsider," Tom says.

"But then you would be breaking the contract you all currently have and it would defeat the purpose of just sliding someone in to take over," I giggle and Tom leans back in the chair looking defeated.

"Look I'm flattered you want me to take over, but I honestly don't know if I can. I have Vada which takes up pretty much all my time and then were still planning our wedding and... I don't work for any management or record company so it would be just solely me which is stressful all on it's own," I explain. I really didn't want to turn them down but realistically it just wouldn't work. The look on their faces make me feel even worse.There is no way I can juggle everything and then some.

"Baby, just say you'll do it. I know you want to. I know you miss it," Chris looks at me after a few minutes of silence between all of us except for the occasional babble from Vada.

"Yea I do kinda miss it but..." I say after a few moments of thinking it over.

"Babe, you'll have help... you won't be doing it all on your own... you're just so good at the business side of things that it just makes sense. I know it was difficult before cause... well, I was fucked up. This time, it's gonna be different. I'm sober," Chris looks at me with those eyes that I just can't say no to as Vada leans her head against Chris's chin and continues to babble.

"You think mommy should manage daddy?" Chris looks down at her and she giggles.

"Yea? I think mommy should too," Chris chuckles and Vada giggles even more.

"See even your daughter thinks you should do it," Chris smirks at me and I smirk back. I look back between Tim, Brad and Tom who all seem to be looking at me hoping I'll just say yes.

"Ok, ok I'll do it," I say with a shrug and they all smile at me looking relieved.

"But I'm gonna need a team behind me... I can't do it all on my own," I say as I look up at Chris.

"Don't worry babe, Like I said... we got you,"

***