I wasn’t in on the matchmaking plan that worked a treat

We met on a steaming night, got married three summers later, and had our first baby four summers after that. You’re asking me to choose which was the summer that changed everything?

OK, the steaming night. It was a wedding in 1995. The bride and her mother had schemed to set us up. They’d known us for years but our paths had never crossed. They told her something like, “He has red hair but don’t worry, he’s funny”. They told me nothing.

I’d arrived in my mother’s maroon Toyota Camry. I was last to the table and worse for wear. Though I wasn’t in on any set-up plan, I was an architect of going hard early before sobering up for the drive home.

She was in deep dewy-eyed conversation with the guy on her other side, this charismatic fairly well-known TV executive. She gave me the back of her head. Assuming she was TV guy’s gorgeous but way-too-young girlfriend, I got chatting with the woman on my left.

Mary, in her 60s, was non-stop fun. We had so much in common we got lost in laughter. Meanwhile, on her way past the table, a girl I knew, a beautiful Amazon, slipped me her wallet and keys to look after; she had nowhere to put them in that skin-tight thing. Another plan that I wasn’t in on, maybe not. Mary was making me laugh so much it was hard to keep track.

Malcolm Knox wearing the not-then-saturated white shirt at the fateful wedding.

The meal and the speeches came and went. The father of the bride, also a little worse for wear, momentarily forgot his daughter’s name. Post-speeches, people got up from their tables to mingle. There was music and dancing. TV guy went off. Mary went off. That left the two of us. I asked about TV guy. She’d only just met him, but she was so far out of my league I didn’t care how frank my questions were.

The next couple of hours are blurry. I remember her wit being even quicker than Mary’s. I remember the humidity. I remember dancing, but in the way you remember things you only ever do when you’ve lost your head.

Memorable was my synthetic white shirt that soon became a clingy see-through number. She thought it was a good idea to sit down. We kept talking. Camry in mind, I rehydrated with water. The conversation didn’t pause.

The bride wafted by, with a sly eye that was not for me. I still wasn’t in on any plan. The Amazon’s keys and wallet had disappeared. There was cake, and the bride threw her corsage. Despite giving away a foot in height and plenty of muscle, she shoulder-charged the Amazon and caught the flowers. Twenty-eight summers later, she still won’t lose.

Malcolm Knox and his wife on their wedding day in 1998.

We sat down again, she clutching the flowers, me plucking my shirt for aeration. When we next noticed the room, everyone else had left – bride, groom, Amazon, TV guy, Mary. It was only me and her and the bride’s family. The mother had that same sly eye. The father had had enough. He came up to me and said, “Take her home.” I dropped her off at her place. In spite of the Camry, I was able to get her number. We had a lunch date that week. By the next summer we’d bought a place together. I was in on the plan now. The marriage from that night had already hit the skids. Maybe it was all an elaborate plot to set us up.

Just recently, a photo surfaced. The shirt is dry, but I’m still out of my league, still unaware of the set-up. Whoever took the picture, though, knew they were snapping personal history – instant love – as it happens.

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