Standard Deviation

Joanna loved ice cream, even in the winter. Once a week, she indulged in a cone topped with mint chocolate chip and hazelnut at the boutique parlor along the corner of Cedar Street. During the summertime, customers overflowed beyond the parlor’s cozy interior adorned with soft light and light-blue wallpaper. The lineup occasionally snaked around the tiny one-story building of red brick, before making its way back to the entrance. Winters were different. The parlor still sold its store-made ice cream to those brave enough to withstand the frigid weather, but no lineups ever broke out of the door, thus allowing Joanna to enjoy her dessert inside. On Saturday afternoon, she donned her thick black parka and snugly fastened her favorite cashmere scarf of silver blue before driving out of the city center. There was no better way to celebrate the start of the weekend than to enjoy some ice cream at her favorite spot, and then join her husband for a cup of coffee near his office. He worked on weekends, but had an hour break around the time she usually finished her mint chocolate chip and hazelnut dessert.

“What will it be, the usual?”

That question prompted her to reconsider her ritual flavors. Peering through the glass, she focused past the reflection of her large hazel eyes and dark brown wavy locks, examining the assorted tubs of ice cream stacked tightly, side by side.

“I’m keen to try a new combination… how about pistachio with cookies and cream?”
“You got it!”

She sat on one of the available stools by the elevated table next to the large storefront window, which extended from the edge of the doorway to the other end of the establishment. Young families and couples often settled in this area to watch the quaint neighborhood activity unfold; digging into their favorite flavors and chatting about whatever came to mind. With the cone clutched in one hand, Joanna retrieved her phone in the other. Her husband was calling her. She permitted herself a delicious first bite into the cookies and cream portion of her treat before answering.

“Joanna, you have to listen to me! Have you read today’s forecast? No? Look Joanna, I need to know if you tried … because… and you…”
“Pete, you’re breaking up, are you in the Express Tunnel?”
“... and you … to ….”

The signal disappeared. From what she could gather, he had entered the newly built Express Tunnel. This underwater bypass linked the city center to the South side where it fed traffic onto a main avenue a few blocks from the ice cream parlor. Joanna never used the tunnel on Saturdays, for she never felt in a hurry. Instead, she took the parkway next to the river to enjoy the peaceful scenery of precisely spaced spruce trees lining up the river bed. Sometimes, a flock of cackling geese making up the leading sides of a perfectly formed triangle flew above her. The riverside drive to the parlor may have taken about twenty minutes longer than the Express Tunnel, yet it gave her time to anticipate.

Pete’s sudden phone call didn’t just shatter Joanna’s tranquil mood: it revived a dormant rift between them. She thought they had settled their at times opposing interpretations of statistics and probability — a conflict that first surfaced when they completed their Masters theses in that discipline ten years ago. When the new forecast section of the newspaper was introduced in the fall, it brought all their petty arguments back into the forefront. Only this time, it did so within the context of daily life instead of abstract concepts. That frustrated her even more. There was no avoiding commonplace occurrences, and therefore, no way to avoid exasperating debates on their probabilities.

“They’ve figured it out, Joanna. All the patterns that can be observed and quantified in society allows them to come up with these strong predictions.”

She went to great pains to explain to him how the writers or editors — whoever they were — didn’t properly contextualize the data. She was doubly frustrated at having to explain it to someone with the same expertise.

“They get it right, Joanna. If you remember, the forecasting of people named Paul Williams losing their job on a particular date came true for at least two of them.”

“Pete, listen to me. Paul Williams is a common name, and everyone knew that a few large companies in the tech industry were about to lay off hundreds of employees.”

“Yet, they got it right.”

She winced at Pete’s rebuttal. He was utterly convinced of the predictive power of the newspaper forecasts, while she viewed them as safe estimations designed to sell more copies. Since no prediction was ever announced with a one-hundred percent probability, she deliberated that the newspaper could easily obfuscate its errors. Despite all the debates, they never were able to come to terms with their different viewpoints, and eventually accepted the stalemate as a given in their relationship. Joanna hoped to avoid any flare-ups. Pete’s phone call from the Express Tunnel jolted her back into a defensive position.

To distract herself, she tried combining the pistachio and cookies and cream in one bite. This required a plastic spoon from the front counter. And so, grabbing one from the pile, she returned to her seat in anticipation, only to sigh heavily upon noticing the newspaper dispenser in front of the shop by the street. In an attempt to appease herself, she scooped a small helping of the pistachio, and introduced it to a small helping of the cookies and cream. The blending of nutty and creamy notes created a flavor she had never tasted before. It then occurred to her how she had been missing out on a lot of novel possibilities, prompting her to consider new combinations every Saturday afternoon. As she enjoyed her ice cream, she watched the tiny world on the corner of Cedar Street go by. A woman and two young girls walked past the parlor, with the youngest pointing inside. Through the thick glass, Joanna could barely hear the girl’s muted pleas for some ice cream. She tried to guess where the three were heading, but then locked her gaze on an old man walking in the opposite direction, towards the intersection. Despite his vulnerable, diminished gait, he took a chance crossing the street during a red light.

Joanna took another bite while her thoughts shifted back towards Pete and his weakness for sensationalist claims. Ruminating on their past disagreements almost convinced her that he studied statistics to satisfy his biases; not to debunk them. The emergence of the newspaper forecasting didn’t do much to dissuade her. The most frustrating moment occurred on a Saturday about two months before, when Pete surprised her during his break while she was leaving the ice cream parlor. He rolled his car up against the curve and opened the passenger window to grab her attention:

“Joanna! The forecast wrote that there’s a sixty-eight percent chance of younger couples locking in a mortgage of less than fifteen years if they visit an open house today! I think it’s worth looking into some two-bedroom homes if you have time.”

She sighed. “Honey, we can’t let a published section of the newspaper dictate every decision. We’re allowed to trust our own reasoning, you know.”

“Why don’t you check out a couple of prospects this afternoon? There’s no harm in trying.”

Joanna was incensed. They were on the lookout for a reasonably priced home with an extra bedroom, but surely they could rely on their own research instead of questionable predictions. Even if they were to find a suitable home with a reasonable mortgage, cause and effect could not be proven. Who was to say that visiting an open house the next day wouldn’t also lead to success? Or perhaps the day or the week after that? Pete, she decided, was blinded by his own emotions and didn’t look at the big picture. Yet he didn’t relent.

“Tell you what, if you don’t believe me, I’ll make you a deal: if any of the houses you visit today don’t work out, I’ll treat you to some Thai food at that fancy restaurant you love.”

She took a moment to consider Pete’s offer, then nodded. That evening, she ordered a green curry with chicken and jasmine rice, while he attempted to conceal the obvious defeat in his eyes. He ordered a Pad Thai with extra spice. Despite his resignation, he ventured an argument: “It was still a thirty-two percent chance of it not working.”

Joanna didn’t want to show her derision in the small yet elegant dining room. Its intimate lighting and comforting ambient music imbued the diners with soothing tranquility. Impeccably dressed servers gracefully swooped in to take orders and present eye-catching dishes with the utmost care. Instead of disturbing the relaxed atmosphere, she tactfully offered a counterargument: “Whether or not there’s a seventy-percent chance of rain or a two percent chance of rain, we always keep an umbrella in the cars. And we can always keep looking for a house without confining ourselves to predicted dates. I would say that increases the probability of success in any case.”

“...That makes sense. You make sense. Sometimes I get carried away. Must be the Pad Thai — it’s quite spicy.”

They both laughed. She grabbed his hand in an act of reconciliation.

In spite of the occasional unpleasant episode brought on by Pete’s impulsive train of thought, he occasionally came up with such brilliant revelations in both his studies and his work, that she could never forget the man whose focus and passion had stolen her heart. It also didn’t hurt that he always kept in good physical shape. She loved his clean look of short trimmed dark hair, his confident disposition, and the way he layered shirts that always matched, no matter the colour. When Pete proposed, he combined his characteristic humor to win her over. He was all too self aware of the tackiness of his words when he took a knee in front of her: “I know there’s a sixteen percent chance of you accepting, but if you marry me, there’s a hundred percent chance of happiness.”

A young couple and their son sat by the window. The son, whom Joanna estimated to be about eight, shared a large cup of mint chocolate chip with his mother, while the father worked on a cone with three large scoops of what appeared to be hazelnut and dark chocolate. Joanna knew what to try the following Saturday. The young family spoke French, which piqued her curiosity since not many French speakers made their way to this part of the city. It presented a rare opportunity for her to test her listening skills.

“Maman, si la crème glacée fond et on la fait geler de nouveau, est-ce que ça va regagner sa forme originale?”

The boy asked his mother if melted ice cream could regain its original shape when frozen again. The mother answered that it wouldn’t be the same. Neither the mother nor the father could come up with an explanation as to why.

After finishing her last bite, Joanna stepped out of the parlor and made her way to the newspaper dispenser in front of the parlor to retrieve a copy. The forecast section took up an entire page, breaking down predictions based on broad categories. At the very top were the more serious predictions. Near the middle of the page, readers would find slightly less yet impactful ones, such as businesses undergoing litigation or infrastructure projects experiencing delays. Lighthearted forecasts graced the bottom: the number of puppies born on a particular day in the city; the winner of prizes at the carnival.

She took a few steps towards the intersection in order to get out of the shade from one of the cedars lining the street, then turned towards the parlor in order to allow the sun to shine directly on the paper. Scanning the page through her visible breath, she found what her husband must have been alluding to. It was right at the top with her full name in print, so familiar that the letters appeared to jut out of the page upon catching it. She began to read the forecast when she heard the unmistakable high-pitched screeching of tires behind her. A car barrelling down the intersection hit some lack ice before suddenly reconnecting with the asphalt. The driver, in a frantic bid to regain control from the icy patch that momentarily marooned the vehicle, had unwittingly pointed it towards the side of the road where Joanna stood. As the vehicle regained traction, it lunged towards her and struck her head on. Instead of propelling her upwards where she would have collided with the hood or windshield, it jumped up upon hitting the curb before clamping on her legs in a downward motion. By the time the driver fully applied the brakes, the car had completely mowed her down, leaving a motionless body crushed and lacerated by the filthy undercarriage. Joanna’s husband stepped out of the car in complete panic, and tried to pull her out from underneath. According to the forecast, people with her full name had a twenty-three percent chance of trying something new, and a nine percent chance of dying from a tragic event that Saturday.


Daniel Sumarto, March 2026

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