PLAIN-EVENT SUMMARY:
Thursday night, November 19. June carries the nine borrowed Marchetti catalogs up to her apartment after the tote strap pops on the third-floor landing. She tries every flat surface she owns, establishes that none fits ten-and-a-half-inch volumes, and stacks them on the floor by the table — the paper-slipped volume on the bottom, the stack turned to face the wall when the slip's edge still shows. She builds a "call station": phone on the charger, notebook, working pen, the scrap with Asha's two New York leads (Dana/Ridgewood room, Kessler/armory work), jacket with the umber cuff mark over the chair, the unopened mineral spirits jar on the sill. She writes a question list for Nia and crosses out "what happens if no." It is 8:40 p.m.; Nia texted "call tomorrow" on Tuesday; June stalled through Wednesday (an invoice) and Thursday (the Marchetti pickup). She calls. Nia lays out the Tasker Street job: a Philadelphia printshop/community-arts building; programs and fabrication, running the rooms — morning opens, Tuesday youth workshops, Thursday open studio, weekend rentals, equipment upkeep (a Vandercook with a sticking gripper bar, an etching press with a knocking bearing, ventilation filters). Terms: full-time W-2, six months funded, benefits after ninety days, modest but regular pay with cheap nearby housing, likely January start with flexibility after mid-December, keys on day one, after-hours studio access written into the job description. Renewal is decent-not-guaranteed (two grants and a city line item). Deadline: Friday, December 4, noon — the board meets the following Monday and Nia must otherwise launch a search to fill the role by February. Nia walks June through a sample Tuesday; June notices her own attention lands on truing up the press, not on the after-hours wall that is supposed to be the part for her. After the call, June reads her notes and finds no flaw in the offer — the flaw she expected isn't there. Asha texts: Kessler's armory load-in is confirmed (January 4, three weeks minimum, $32/hr, net-45); June asks Asha to hold her slot until early December rather than give it to Dario. Asha adds that Dana's Ridgewood room opens end of January at $340/month with bad heat. June remembers Asha's standing request — if June passes on Philly, send Nia Asha's name — and deliberately does not send it yet. The group thread delivers Priya's report that forty flyer copies are live and Mara's repost of the kiss-aftermath photo; June looks at it and registers that her face in it is not surprised. Theo texts his six p.m. chair count for the joint piece (41 chairs, 9 occupied, one by a coat) and confirms the ground is prepped and drying; June answers only the factual part (the coat counts). She washes dishes, turns the catalog stack spines-out again, checks the now-dry umber cuff and leaves it, then writes *FRI DEC 4 / NOON* on the back of the Marchetti Rooms receipt for the twelve-by-sixteen ground, props the receipt against the catalog stack where she'll see it from bed, stove, and door, and weights it with the unopened mineral spirits jar. Fifteen days remain. She turns off the light without an answer.

No `[UNCLEAR]` markers were needed. The two places I tested hardest for a forced guess: (1) the receipt's provenance — the chapter has not previously shown a purchase, but the object self-identifies on sight ("MARCHETTI ROOMS, the twelve-by-sixteen ground, Theo's blocky register print, Thursday's date," ch15:109), so its origin in that afternoon's pickup requires recognition, not guessing; (2) "That's a hold. I'll know by early Dec" (ch15:91) — tested for ambiguity between accepting and deferring Kessler; the exchange's structure (Asha: "So that's a yes?" / June's correction) makes it unambiguous deferral with a stated date.

INVENTORY:
- "Tasker Street job (programs and fabrication / studio operations)" — introduced: ch15:23 — first plot weight: ch15:59–61 (deadline) and ch15:111–117 (the written, unanswered deadline) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("The building's a printshop with a community arts program attached… You'd run the rooms," ch15:23, followed by the task list at ch15:27 and the full Tuesday walkthrough at ch15:65). The terms are delivered as duties, money, housing math, keys, renewal risk, deadline — in that order — before any of them is asked to hurt.
- "Vandercook" — introduced: ch15:27 — first plot weight: ch15:67 (June's pulse going to the press, not the wall) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("You true up the Vandercook before the afternoon session… The line that interested her was *true up the Vandercook.* Not the wall. The press," ch15:65–67 — the chapter explicitly equates the brand name with "the press" before the realization leans on it; the parallel "an etching press with a bearing that knocks" at ch15:27 already typed it as shop machinery).
- "W-2 / benefits after ninety days" — introduced: ch15:37 — first plot weight: ch15:39 — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("June looked at the two invoices on the table. She wrote *W-2* and *benefits* on the next line," ch15:39 — the freelance-vs-salaried contrast is staged as objects on the table, not explained).
- "Keys / after-hours studio access" — introduced: ch15:45 — first plot weight: ch15:67–69 and ch15:113 (the woman at the press who won't turn around) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("after eight, when the last session clears out, the room's yours. Big wall in the back, decent sink… It's in writing," ch15:45).
- "Renewal / two grants and a city line item" — introduced: ch15:51 — first plot weight: ch15:53 ("the part where it might evaporate") — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("If the city line item holds, the six months becomes a year and the year becomes a job," ch15:51).
- "Friday, December 4, noon deadline" — introduced: ch15:59 — first plot weight: ch15:111–117 — orientation: SUFFICIENT (the mechanism is concrete and causal: "I either bring them your name or I bring them a search plan… I can't hold the room open past the fourth and still get someone in by February, and February is when the youth grant reporting starts caring," ch15:59).
- "net-45" — introduced: ch15:85 — first plot weight: same line (the cost of the New York path) — orientation: SUFFICIENT (Asha self-glosses in the same text: "Invoice Jan, see it in Mar," ch15:85).
- "Kessler armory slot" (reappearing, Ch09) — re-entry: ch15:9 scrap ("*Kessler, armory, Jan, pays late*") — plot weight: ch15:85–91 (the hold) — orientation: SUFFICIENT (the scrap functions as an in-scene reminder card before the text arrives).
- "Dana's Ridgewood room" (reappearing, Ch09) — re-entry: ch15:9 scrap — plot weight: ch15:93 — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("the Ridgewood room is officially open end of Jan, 340/mo, no heat after 10pm," ch15:93).
- "the receipt" — introduced: ch15:109 — first plot weight: ch15:111–115 (deadline object) — orientation: SUFFICIENT (itemized on first appearance, quoted above).
- "chair counts / label notes" (reappearing, Ch14) — re-entry: ch15:101 — plot weight: none in this chapter beyond continuity — orientation: SUFFICIENT, narrowly. This is the thinnest re-entry: a reader two days out from Ch14 gets only "9:40 count Tuesday as promised" and "label notes" as anchors. The counter-candidate I weighed: a reader who has forgotten the six p.m./nine-forty chair-state plan would find Theo's census of a coat baffling. "As promised" plus the joint-piece ground in the same text keeps it placed for a sequential reader, and nothing downstream in this chapter depends on it; it stays above the line.
- "The ground's faced and drying" (ch15:101) — considered as an opacity: "faced" is shop jargon a lay reader may not parse. Ruled sufficient because the clause's consequence survives misparsing — the panel is prepped and wet — and the ground itself was established in Ch14.

CONFUSION MAP:
- "She told herself that was about weight distribution." (ch15:7) — reader loses: nothing about the action; the *reason* for burying the slipped volume is visibly rationalized — opacity: ASSIGNED (later payoff — the catalog/slip thread is an armed discovery mechanism per Ch14's close, and the chapter performs avoidance rather than explanation: the slip edge "showed anyway," the stack gets turned to the wall, then turned back at ch15:107 with "the slip was just paper." The book is conspicuously not-reading on purpose, and the reader can see it).
- "not because she was hiding it but because that was how the jacket landed, and if she moved it now she'd be admitting she'd noticed." (ch15:9) — reader loses: a literal reading of June's motive — opacity: ASSIGNED (voice/comic — the self-contradiction is the joke; the chapter card flags comic register, and June's card specifies denial rendered through object handling).
- "Her own face in it was doing the thing she'd been trying to caption since Mara sent it: not surprised. That was the trouble with it. Surprised she could have explained." (ch15:99) — reader loses: nothing on a careful first read, but the inference (not-surprised means the kiss was wanted, which indicts the fake-couple cover) is compressed into three clauses — opacity: ASSIGNED (voice — June "says the true thing sideways" per her card; the reading guide's interiority discipline requires feeling via object first, and the photo is the object. The Ch13/Ch14 kiss context the reader carries makes the inference one step, not two).
- "a woman at the press who would not turn around." (ch15:113) — reader loses: momentarily, the referent (it is June's imagined future self in the third person) — opacity: ASSIGNED (voice/later payoff — the image is built twice before it's used: "Her pulse had gone straight past the part of the offer that was supposed to be for her" at ch15:67, and "standing at the wall would feel like a question" at ch15:69. The distancing is the point: the stay/leave decision this image services is explicitly deferred to a later chapter).
- "It did that when the room would not line up." (ch15:29) — reader loses: briefly, what "the room would not line up" means — opacity: ASSIGNED (voice — self-establishing tic: the neat-handwriting-under-stress tell is defined here and reused at ch15:61, "The date sat in the same neat handwriting as the gripper notes," which retroactively confirms the first use; June's card specifies "under stress, gets visually precise").
- Strongest accidental candidate examined and cleared: "I can't hold the room open past the fourth" (ch15:59) — "the room" here means the position, while "the room's yours" (ch15:45) meant the literal back room. The surrounding clause ("I either bring them your name or I bring them a search plan… get someone in by February") disambiguates within the sentence, and the doubled usage is consistent with Nia's established idiom (rooms, keys, paychecks). Not a finding, but it is the chapter's closest brush with one concept wearing two names.

CHARACTER CLARITY:
- Nia Torres (reappearing, first sustained on-page scene): PLACEABLE ("Nia had texted *call tomorrow before you talk yourself out of it* on Tuesday," ch15:13, plus institutional anchors: "The board approved it Monday," ch15:37; "I wrote the job description," ch15:45).
- Asha Ibrahim (reappearing): PLACEABLE ("The folded scrap with Asha's two leads on it," ch15:9; "Asha's voice from the loading dock at Kessler's, hands full of strap," ch15:95 — work context, channel, and history all restated in-scene).
- Theo Brennan (reappearing, off-page): PLACEABLE ("signed out under her name in Theo's ledger," ch15:5; "Theo's blocky register print," ch15:109).
- Priya Nair (reappearing, one text): PLACEABLE ("*40 copies live. Matte looks clean*," ch15:99 — continuous with her Ch14 role queuing the forty flyer copies).
- Mara Valdez (reappearing, one beat): PLACEABLE ("Then Mara, replying with the photo itself," ch15:99 — she is the photo's author from Ch13/14, and the photo is named "The flyer photo" in the same breath).
- Marco (new, offstage): PLACEABLE ("Marco's been opening it with a screwdriver," ch15:33; "Marco's in at ten; you two flip the room," ch15:65 — shop staff, fully defined by his two tasks).
- Dario (new, offstage): PLACEABLE ("do I give your slot to Dario," ch15:85 — rival installer for the Kessler slot; June's "He overtightens everything," ch15:87, establishes prior working knowledge).
- Dana (reappearing, offstage): PLACEABLE ("Dana says the Ridgewood room is officially open," ch15:93 — source of the room, nothing more asked of her).
- Shared-marker pair Nia / Asha (overlapping role: both offer June work; similar short feminine names): UN-CONFUSABLE — the chapter separates them by channel, register, and offer type: Nia arrives by sustained phone call speaking in institutional terms (board, W-2, grants, job description, deadline); Asha arrives by text in rate-and-date shorthand ($32/hr, net-45, 340/mo). The remembered line at ch15:95 ("If you pass on Philly, send Nia my name") names both in a single sentence that requires and confirms their distinctness: Asha is a candidate for Nia's job, never the reverse. What each offers is also stated in the scene's furniture — Nia's terms fill the notebook page; Asha's leads sit on a separate scrap "set to the left like a reference swatch" (ch15:9).
- Shared-marker pair Mara / Marco (shared "Mar-" stem, both present in this chapter; "Marchetti" adds a third): UN-CONFUSABLE — they never share a context: Marco exists only inside Nia's Philadelphia call as shop staff with a screwdriver (ch15:33, 65); Mara exists only in the group thread as the photo's sender (ch15:99), consistent with two chapters of flyer history. No sentence contains both, and their roles cannot be swapped without the sentence breaking.
- Shared-marker pair Dana / Dario (both D-names, both introduced inside Asha's orbit, lines 85–93): UN-CONFUSABLE — each name arrives welded to its function in the same clause ("give your slot to Dario" — a worker; "Dana says the Ridgewood room is officially open" — a room source), and "He overtightens everything" genders and characterizes Dario before Dana's text arrives.

COMPLEXITY CHECKS:
1. Scene action / physical orientation / focalizer perception / plot-bearing consequence on first read: HOLDS — the apartment is measured in inches (ch15:5), the call station is itemized before the call (ch15:9–11), the focalizer's perception is the chapter's engine and is stated plainly at its hinge ("Her pulse had gone straight past the part of the offer that was supposed to be for her and settled into the part that kept the room usable," ch15:67), and the consequence is a physical object placed in three sightlines (ch15:115).
2. New terms plain before they carry plot weight: HOLDS — per the inventory: Vandercook is glossed as "the press" (ch15:67) before the realization beat uses it; the deadline's mechanics (board Monday, search plan, February grant reporting, ch15:59) precede the deadline-as-object close; net-45 is glossed in the same text that introduces it (ch15:85). The focused timeline check also holds: "It was eight-forty on Thursday night. Nia had texted *call tomorrow*… on Tuesday. June had spent Wednesday on an invoice and Thursday at Marchetti Rooms" (ch15:13) states the whole sequence in three sentences, and "For two days" (ch15:19) confirms it in dialogue.
3. Mysteries deliberately genre-apt rather than accidental: HOLDS — the two withheld things are withheld visibly: the slip (avoidance performed as stacking and rotating, ch15:7/107 — suspense the reader can watch June construct) and the unanswerable yes/no (the crossed-out "what happens if no," ch15:11, and "the no that she couldn't yet justify with anything Nia would recognize as a real reason," ch15:113 — named as unanswerable, not hidden). The catalogs stay strictly physical objects throughout — dimensions, weight, spines, a slip edge — and nothing implies June has read the back matter; the closest approach is her *not* looking, twice.
4. Plain footholds at moments of high load: HOLDS — the densest stretch (terms, renewal odds, deadline mechanics, ch15:37–61) is punctuated by June's diegetic punch-list ("*Vandercook. W-2. Keys. After 8. Wall, on the paper. Renewal decent. FRI DEC 4 NOON,*" ch15:81), and the emotional pivot gets a one-clause plain statement ("The flaw wasn't in the offer," ch15:81). The gate's fieldguide-shopping-list WATCH hit on that punch-list is diegetic — June reading her own notebook — and is doing orientation work, not prose decoration.
5. Aliases / near-synonyms making one concept look like several: HOLDS — the job is consistently "Tasker Street" / "the building"; the joint-piece panel is consistently "the ground"; the one stressed word is "room" (the studios, the back room, the open position), examined above and cleared because each use is disambiguated within its own sentence and the drift is Nia's established idiom. "Philly" (ch15:95) is the chapter's only city name, but the reader carries Philadelphia from Ch09/Ch13 and the relocation stakes are stated materially ("a one-bedroom four blocks from the building," ch15:41; "give after mid-December if you need to wrap things," ch15:45).

REVISION ORDERS:
None. Zero findings qualified as UNCLEAR, INSUFFICIENT, ACCIDENTAL, UNPLACED, CONFUSABLE, or FAILS. The near-misses that came closest, with the evidence that cleared each: the chair-count text's thin re-entry (held by "as promised" and two-day adjacency), the receipt's unannounced provenance (held by its self-identifying contents at ch15:109), and "hold the room open" (held by in-sentence disambiguation at ch15:59).

OVERALL: CLEAR-UNDER-COMPLEXITY

Heaviest-load passage: ch15:51–61 — renewal odds, grant structure, the December 4 noon deadline, and its institutional mechanics arriving in one continuous stretch of dialogue. The foothold that carries it: June's notebook, used diegetically — "*FRI DEC 4. NOON.* The date sat in the same neat handwriting as the gripper notes" (ch15:61) — which converts the chapter's densest information into a single object the close re-uses, so the reader files the deadline the same way June does: as a thing written down, not yet answered.
