The John Hughes Club

Chapter Fifty Seven

"Mindy?! How much soy sauce do you want me to put into this egg fried rice? I like a lot of it, but I don't want to ruin it for you," from the tiny kitchen in his caravan, dad's wittering on to me while I'm in the tiny toilet.

"I trust you!" I yell back, sat on the loo, trying to have my pee in peace.

"You do?!" Dad hollers, chuckling away to himself. "Well, I usually have my rice swimming in the stuff, but I'll ease up on it this evening," he chatters on, listening to Coldplay as he can be heard loudly stirring some of the ingredients together in his well used wok.

I nearly didn't come to see dad this weekend. I've not been feeling 100% since fainting a few days ago. I've not said anything to anyone, and I'm trying to take it easy when I can, but I still have to go to school and I still have to revise. Besides, Christmas break is only a week away, so I can relax more then. When I hear dad singing happily out of key and a little out of time with Chris Martin, I'm glad that I didn't cancel on him—he's a good tonic to my feeling meh!

With a smile, I pull up my jeans, zip them up before washing my hands. The same smile accompanies me back into the kitchen, joining dad and his amazingly bad singing. "I can't believe that no matter how many times you've heard this song, you still can't keep up with the lyrics," teasing him, I pinch a chopped up piece of yellow pepper, chucking it into my mouth with a close-lipped grin.

Pointing his spatula in my direction, dad rests a playful scowl fully upon me. "Being tone deaf won't stop my inner recording artist," he jokes, now pretending that the spatula is a microphone, continuing with more of his brilliantly bad singing.

Shaking my head, I start to giggle...who wouldn't, right?

Dad is happy, and that always makes me happy. However, he seems exceptionally happy this evening. "You're in a good mood," is casually stated by myself, chucking yet another piece of pepper into my mouth.

"I suppose I am," he sings back, totally embracing his inner Chris Martin.

Leaning against the worktop, my teen intuition is telling me that there's more to his happiness, more to his out-of-time singing. "Are you going to tell me why you're in such a great mood or am I going to have to endure more of your kitchen karaoke?"

Cupping all of the chopped peppers with both his hands, he throws them in the wok to sizzle amongst the onions and garlic already in there. "For a teenager, you don't miss much, do you?" Wiping his hands on a tea towel, dad smirks. "If you must know, I met someone a couple of weeks ago through work. We've been out a few times now, and I have a good feeling about how things are going."

My dad.
My wonderful dad.
Has finally found someone who his bruised heart is ready to open up to.

A gleam of delight reveals itself when I look his way. "That's great, Dad! Does this someone have a name?" I ask him, the same delight now present in my voice.

"Lindy, her name is Lindy," Dad lightly informs me, tossing the food like he's morphed from being a global singing star to National chef. "She has a son who is thirteen and got divorced a few years back. We met when there was a mix-up on a delivery order. Lindy is in charge of the orders, so she had to come down to the loading bay to sort it all out...we just hit it off right away," his telling of how they first met brings more of his smile up to his large blue eyes.

Watching him add the rice and peas, I really am happy that my dad is putting his huge heart out in the world. He's too wonderful a man to be without someone to share his life with. He has too much to give, too much to offer. If my life so far has taught me anything, it's that if happiness happens to come your way, you grab it with both your hands...you grab it and you don't let go. "I can't wait to meet Lindy and her son," truthfully wanders off my tongue.

Turning his head, dad looks my way for a curious second. "You mean that?" Dad surprisingly asks me, needing to put all his attention back onto our cooking dinner.

Handing him the bowl of the scrambled eggs that he'd previously cooked before, a small upwards smile forms because of my own curiosity. "Why wouldn't I mean that?"

"Well, I know you've struggled over me and your mum splitting and divorcing. You've had to cope with moving and changing schools. Then Rob came into the picture, that also shook things up a lot. I know things have now settled down about all of that, but you've got your exams coming up...I just don't want to add to any pressures being put on you," thoughtfully, dad expresses every one of his fatherly concerns.

Taking myself beside him, I rest my head against the curve of his shoulder—the parental shoulder that I know I'll always have in my life. "Dad, your happiness isn't ever going to put pressure on me. You deserve to be with someone you care about. Just do me a favour?" My gaze lightly lifts to find his.

"What's that?" he asks in a hurry, his eyes darting down to mine.

"The whole kitchen karaoke thing...you might want to keep that from Lindy for a little while longer," wincing just a tad, my teasing then erupts into the widest of daughterly grins.

Just as the words leave my mouth, a new song by Coldplay comes through the iPod speakers. Again, dad brings the spatula back up to his smirking mouth, breaking into a loud rendition of Adventure of a Lifetime. When the sticky rice-covered spatula is thrusted in front of my face, that's my cue to join in with the dodgy singing. Together, dad and I start slaughtering the track with our less than harmonious vocals. Together, we bounce around to the uplifting chords; giggling in between all of the bad singing and bumbling bouncing. With his free hand, dad takes hold of my fingers, wanting to twirl me. It used to be okay when I was younger and much lighter on my feet, and usually in a far bigger space. Now, it's trickier as I'm not so dainty, and the caravan kitchen just isn't accommodating the clumsy twirls. After a few ungraceful and playful pirouettes, the disorienting feeling I had during netball the other day, is back with an unsettling vengeance. Unsteady on my feet, I slump sideways against the worktop, needing it to give me some sense of balance.

"Mindy? You okay, love?" I hear dad, sounding concerned and sounding distant...appearing distorted and disturbingly distant.

"I...I feel...I feel...faint..." Oh no! Not again! As the linoleum flooring seems to be falling away from my feet, I feel myself falling into the arms of my father.