HOLIDAY PREPARATIONS HAVE KICKED into high gear. Despite having finished Christmas shopping weeks ago, it isn't until I wrap everything and place it under the tree that I see how pitiful the little grouping of presents actually looks.

Every year, sometime in November, I decide that THIS Christmas will be less about consumerism and more about the actual meaning of Christmas, so I identify the one or two things each of my family really needs and I buy that. Only that. Then, in the days leading up to Christmas, I realize that the problem is that I don't know what the 'true meaning of Christmas' actually is, having grown up in the '70s and '80s where consumerism was literally our religion. This leads to the inevitable moment in late December where I stand in front of the tree, fingers sticky with scotch tape and slightly drunk on Baileys, and feel very, very anxious that I am, in fact, letting the whole tradition of Christmas down.

Did I honestly think my teenage daughter would be happy with a personalized baking apron and a silk pillowcase (impulse purchase through a Facebook ad)? That my son — still a child really and deserving of Christmas morning magic — would be delighted by a new bike helmet and a set of Minecraft books? And what does it say about my marriage that all I've found for Vic are some work socks and an oversized travel mug that says "World's Greatest Dad."

Come on, Alice, I reprimand myself. You've got to do better than this. I can think, suddenly, of a million things each of them need, want or would be delighted by and set about ordering them with overnight shipping, praying that they arrive in time.

Just in case they don't, I also use up a precious half-day of freedom at the mall, gathering backup gifts and, arguably, unnecessary stocking stuffers to sort of bulk the whole thing out.

This is how I find myself deep in the whorish heart of the Eaton Centre on December 21st, armed with nothing but my credit card and a frenzied desire to buy everything. I flit in and out of shops, sweating under my winter coat, lured in by tinsel and BOGO signs; I finger cashmere sweaters uncertainly, poke through piles of toys, and sniff around tables of glossy apple products.

An hour or two into my shopping adventure, exhausted by the crowds and feet aching, I decide to take my armload of bags over to the food court and reward myself with a Cinnabon and coffee. The internalized voice of my food coach, who would normally be shouting nonsense about green plans and zero-point options, is officially off duty. It's Christmas, I tell her. Chill the hell out and enjoy a pastry.

After elbowing my way into an impossible-to-find empty table, practically helping the vacating residents on with their coats, I deposit my bags safely under my table, between my feet, with a big sigh of relief. The whirring frenzy of consumerism I've been in the grip of starts to ebb at last as I peel luscious sticky strips of cinnamon bun and shuttle them into my mouth meditatively.

I'm so absorbed in this delicious act of food rebellion that I barely notice the skwaks of recognition that feel almost commonplace now (although no less embarrassing). They erupt around me at intervals whenever I'm in a public place. Especially one populated largely by teens.

Oh my god - it's the BigButts lady!

In the grand scheme of things, I tell myself, I'd rather be recognized as the #bigbutts lady than the #pushitpukefest lady and just try to tune them out. I keep ferrying fingerfuls of dough toward my mouth until the whole cinnamon bun is gone.

I'm keeping my head down (in case of filming) and discreetly trying to lick white icing off my fingers when a pair of workman's overalls appear in my peripheral vision next to my table.

Ugh, I can deal with the squawking and whispering, but I hate it when they try to take selfies with me.

"Look," I say, annoyed and refusing to make eye contact with the owner of the coveralls. "Can't a woman just sit in a food court and eat a Cinnabon in peace without being—"

"Alice, can I sit down?"

I look up to find Leslie (Vivian's ex and my husband's coworker) standing next to my table. She's holding a coffee and looking as nervous as I suddenly feel.

"Oh," I say, wiping icing bits and cinnamon dust from the table in front of me. "Leslie. Sure. I... this is a surprise."

She slips into the empty seat across from me and says nothing for an awkward moment.

"Last minute Christmas shopping?" I ask stupidly, even though she has no shopping bags and is wearing her work clothes.

"Nope. Just on break. We're on a job nearby."

"Oh, is Vic with you?" I crane my neck hopefully, thinking my husband might just save me from the unbelievable awkwardness of this unexpected parlay with my former nemesis.

"Nope."

Another silent moment passes while she removes the plastic lid from her coffee cup and blows on it before taking a sip.

I can feel myself needing to fill up the empty air.

"You drink your coffee black. That's so much better for you. I wish I could. I like oat milk in mine, but that's basically like drinking carbs, that's what my diet coach says. She always encourages me to try drinking it black but I don't know... I just find—"

Thankfully, Leslie interrupts my oat-milk monologue before I start exploring the relative benefits of other plant-based milks (almond, cashew, soy, almond-soy, soy-cashew...) "—Alice, I saw you sitting here and, to be honest with you, I just about turned around and ran. But then I realized that is exactly the kind of avoidance behaviour my therapist has been calling me out for. So I—"

"Oh, I have a therapist too. I know exactly what you mean," I offer. A small olive branch.

"I'm glad to hear it," she says, which I don't like very much."But my point is, Dr. Sharma has been helping me work through everything that happened with Vivian. And she insists that I have to take some amount of responsibility for how things ended."

It takes ALL MY WILLPOWER not to make a 'no shit' face at her. Instead, I keep my face neutral and let her go on.

"If Vivian can't handle true intimacy, that's her problem to deal with. If I spent years avoiding that fact and enabling her to stay at the most surface level—"

"Wait a minute," I cut in this time. "You're saying the breakup was Vivian's fault?"

"Well, I'm saying we both a had part to play in it and—"

"No, hang on. I mean, she's not the one who was having an affair, Leslie."

Leslie's face goes completely still.

"Pardon?"

"Your affair. Vivian told me. The night you broke up, she said you said you're in love with someone else."

"I didn't say that. There's no affair. Why would she say that I said that? All I said was that the person I fell in love with — and I'm talking about Vivian, duh — was completely different from the person she's been acting like lately. How everything started to change after I asked her to get married."

"Married!?" I practically shout, not meaning to. But the idea of Vivian getting married feels so completely preposterous I can't help myself. "Oh, Leslie... I could've told you. Vivian can't handle commitment. Never could. The fact that you've been together five years and moved in together was a miracle, honestly. You pushed it too far."

Leslie's eyes go all sparkly and I immediately feel sorry for being so brutally honest with her.

"I mean," I say, "Well, you know what I mean. She's like a wild horse. She gets spooked by anything that looks or feels like a saddle. But she loves you. That much is undeniable. You should see her moping around my place. She's a mess since you threw her out."

Leslie shakes her head in despair.

"I didn't throw her out. I was trying to fix it. She couldn't hear me. Didn't want to hear me. She's the one who left."

I nod. Yep, that sounds like Vivian. And to Vic's credit, he'd already suggested that was probably what had happened. But I'd been unable to believe that even commitment-phobic Vivian would create so much drama and cause so much pain when she was clearly devastated herself.

"I don't know what to say, Leslie. I can tell you though that she's really, really devastated. She talks about you all the time."

Leslie puts her cup firmly down on the table.

"Well, it's too late for that. As I said, Dr. Sharma is helping me to understand the part I play in my own repeatable patterns. She thinks I need to closely examine the kinds of people I tend to fall for. I mean, how could I ever have loved a person who has the capacity to break into my house and steal all my underwear? Do you even know how weird that is?"

Oh, shoot, I think.

"Right, okay. So, there's been a teensy misunderstanding there. And I meant to text you or call around or something to let you know but I guess things just kind of got away from me with the cafe and everything. I can explain about your underwear..."