I've read the audit spec, the chapter, the reading guide, voice cards, manifest, tic tracker, and prior-context files. The manifest marks exactly one Chapter 18 scene as doctor-required — scene 05, the June/Mara scarf return outside Sonia's (lines 60–87); the text-message scenes (01, 04) fall below the dialogue-line threshold under the manifest's segmentation. Here is the completed audit:

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# Dialogue Doctor — Chapter 18 (Returned Scarf)

**Coverage note:** Per `dialogue_scene_manifest.md`, only scene 05 (lines 60–87) is doctor-required for this chapter; scenes 01–04 and 06 carry their dialogue as italicized text messages or no dialogue at all (0 counted dialogue lines) and are outside required coverage under the manifest's segmentation rules. I spot-checked the text-message exchanges anyway for the zero-tolerance calibration items (diagnosis in narration, advice-oracle Mara) and report on them inside the relevant verdict lines below where they bear on the required scene's speakers.

**SCENE 05 / sidewalk outside Sonia's, Sunday 10 a.m. (lines 60–87), speakers June Park and Mara Valdez, June focalizing:**

- **1. Voice convergence: CLEAN** — Covered attributions and read the eleven exchanges blind. June's lines run two to six words, declarative, no social cushioning ("And dried flat." / "I'm painting." / "I don't know about Tuesday."); Mara's run twelve to twenty-five words with hosting logistics and soft landings ("Luis made too much. There's pie under the turkey. Don't tilt it."). Strongest counter-candidate: **"Better than I treat it."** — Mara's one June-length line; it survives because it sits inside a longer physical hosting beat (smoothing the fold, settling it between dishes) and her very next utterance reverts to her full social register ("You look like you're sleeping in shifts."). No line in the scene could be reassigned without the register breaking.

- **2. Monotone Q/A rhythm: CLEAN** — Mapped the volley structure: one genuine question ("Wool soap?"), one observation June deflects, one imperative chain (pie instructions), one interrupted protest ("Mara —") that Mara talks over, one invitation June declines to answer, one thanks Mara corrects. Lengths alternate short/long throughout; two of June's turns are non-answers to the actual prompt. Strongest counter-candidate: the opening pair **"Wool soap?" / "And dried flat."** — a clean Q/A beat, but it is the only one, and June's answer responds to the implied compliment rather than the question, which breaks the volley shape immediately.

- **3. Missing interiority: CLEAN** — June's mind stays on through the exchange in her card's idiom (perception first, judgment second): "It was padding even in transit" (line 67) is a painter's read of how Mara stores the scarf; "Then she looked at June for a second longer than the scarf required" (line 67) registers being examined; the dish-and-loan paragraph (line 81) converts the pie handoff into what it costs June and directly motivates "Thank you for October." Strongest counter-candidate: the run from **"Okay," Mara said** through the pie instructions (line 71), three exchanges with no interior line — it survives because June's held-level foil brick and her interrupted "Mara —" carry her resistance physically, and her card specifies she goes busy and exact under stress rather than discursive.

- **4. Questions-as-statements: CLEAN** — Checked every interrogative and every flat line for disguised positions. "Wool soap?" is a real question with a real answer. Mara's positions arrive as positions: "Sit by me Tuesday," "It's a dish I want back." Strongest counter-candidate: **"You look like you're sleeping in shifts."** — an observation deployed as an opening for June to talk; it survives because it is grammatically and functionally a statement, June is free to deflect it ("I'm painting"), and Mara visibly accepts the deflection ("Okay") instead of converting it into pressure — which is also the calibration's required not-asking, kept legible.

- **5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism: CLEAN** — Attribution and gesture are present at normal density: "she said, taking the fold," "Mara said, and reached into the tote," "She shifted the tote up her shoulder." June's clipped lines are card-licensed compression, not performed starkness, and the narration around them stays full. Strongest counter-candidate: **"Mara —"** followed by Mara's talk-over — a stripped beat, but the interruption is dramatized (Mara deliberately overrides the protest to make the gift stick), not white-space portent.

- **6. Jargon-trading without translation: CLEAN** — Scanned for world-terms a cold reader can't weigh. The scene's nouns are scarf, wool soap, tote, pie dishes, foil, Corolla, Tuesday. "Ruth has opinions about wall spacing" is the one cohort-internal reference; it survives because the line itself translates it ("I need another painter at the table") into the actual offer: a seat next to Mara at the showcase prep.

- **7. Attribution opacity: CLEAN** — Two speakers, alternating turns, five explicit tags plus distinct action beats; covered every tag and never lost the thread, including across the interiority paragraph at line 81, where "she said" (line 83) re-anchors to June before Mara's reply. Strongest counter-candidate: **"Thank you for October," she said** after a June-interiority paragraph — the pronoun could momentarily float, but the paragraph is entirely June's and Mara is named in the next line.

- **FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN** — Ran all eleven exchanges against the cut-list. Strongest counter-candidate: **"It's a dish I want back, so it's not even generous. It's a hostage exchange."** — the scene's most composed line and the one I came closest to flagging. It survives on every cut-list test: it is speakable on a sidewalk (test-read aloud; no syntax a host wouldn't produce); the exchange does not exist to deliver it — it exists to return the scarf, transfer the pie, and put the Tuesday invitation on the table; and it arrives as a tactical deflection of June's interrupted refusal ("Mara —"), which is Mara's card exactly (converting charity into transaction so June can accept it), with the deflection visible as deflection. Second candidate: **"You can thank me in soup."** — survives because it is not a capper; it does new work, refusing June's elegy register ("Thank you for October" / "It's almost December") and asserting continuity without asking the Tuesday question again. I also checked the loaded-silence bullet: Mara's only non-answer (the glance toward the blinking hazards after "I don't know about Tuesday") is immediately weighed by the focalizer — the dish/loan paragraph registers what the non-pressing exchange has changed. Per the grief calibration I counted composed lines against the style bible's floor: two of Mara's seven turns are quotable-shaped, June's four are all flat; the scene stays under banter density and June is never given a zinger at a moment she should be quiet.

- **INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION (Rule 9, both directions): CLEAN** — Neither dark nor double-explaining. Strongest counter-candidate for over-explanation: **"June had come to pay off a loan and was leaving with a new one. With this crowd, zero did not last long enough to be useful."** (line 81) — this restates Mara's hostage-exchange joke in earnest terms, and I tested it as a second lap. It survives because it is not a re-caption of the line but June's lived accounting of it (her exit plan requires reaching zero; the paragraph is the reason "Thank you for October" comes out of her next), and it inflects rather than repeats: Mara framed an even trade, June registers a net new debt. Watch item, not a finding: this extends the fiscal/debt narration register the tic tracker marked as Theo's Ch08 spine ("do not inherit as default narration") — one instance here is scene-functional, but the tracker should log it.

- **Calibration checks (chapter-specific):** *Dialogue diagnosis / delivery-rating:* zero instances in the scene; candidates examined and cleared: "a second longer than the scarf required" (rates a look's duration, not anyone's language) and "'Okay,' Mara said" (no narration caption attached). The scene-01 narration "Three words, nothing to argue with, nothing asked" about Theo's text states content (he asked nothing), not phrasing or delivery, and is outside required coverage. *Advice-oracle / detective Mara:* she asks no question about Theo, the class, or the lie; her one observation is dropped the moment June deflects; her remedies are material (pie, a saved seat). *Plain-speech floor:* both principals clear it — June: "Thank you for October." / "I don't know about Tuesday."; Mara: "Sit by me Tuesday... I need another painter at the table." A cold reader can state the ledger: June returns the scarf, accepts the food, refuses to commit to Tuesday, and says thank you; Mara offers food and a seat, accepts the scarf, and does not ask why June is wrecked or what happened — and the not-asking is on the page, not decoded.

**REVISION ORDERS:** none. No FAIL verdicts in the required scene.

**OVERALL: CLEAN**

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The one near-miss worth the orchestrator's attention is logged inside the Rule-9 verdict: the loan/zero fiscal figure in June's interiority is clean here but is a second chapter-spine inheritance of the Ch08 debt register, and the tic tracker should pick it up so it doesn't become June's default narration move in Ch19–20.
