# Narrator-Publicist Audit — Chapter 20 ("No Advice / Keys Here") — ROUND 2

## Scope and stance check

Round-2 sweep after execution of the three round-1 revision orders. Re-collected every narrator description of June Park (focalizer), Ruth Kim, Sam Rivera, Nia Torres, and Asha Ibrahim — appearance, movement, gesture, presence, and every narration clause interpreting a care act or the job decision. Reading guide §1–2 declares close third past, June focalizing, interiority discipline ("feelings rendered through action, object, and dialogue first"); no publicist-by-design narrator is declared anywhere in the guide, and `continuity.md` contains no narrator-stance declaration — findings would stand unlaundered. June's free-indirect license covers self-aimed jokes and painter's-eye visual nouns only. Calibration hunted specifically: (a) narrator campaigning for June's independence around the 10:40 no; (b) re-certification of Ruth/Sam/Nia/Asha ethical competence, the round-1 failure mode. Exact actions (catalogs, chair move, consent ask, the pre-deadline no, W-9, hanging the study) were treated as allowed proof and not penalized. Standing orders from `tics.md` Ch19–20 rows re-checked: "care uncomfortable and embodied," "no next care scene should explain the virtue of this mode," care-without-advice marked "achieved / fragile."

## Round-1 repair verification

1. **Sam stairwell (was marker 2, "made everyone else on the stairwell look provisional").** Current text line 23: "Sam first, orange scarf bright in the stairwell, Ruth behind with her coat still buttoned." Strip test on "bright": nothing evaluative remains to strip — "bright" is an optical property of a garment under stairwell light, perceiver June (painter's eye, guide-licensed), and the invented "everyone else" is gone. The buttoned coat now sits against the scarf as plain contrast with no reaction grade assigned to either. **REPAIR HOLDS.**
2. **Nia clause motive (was marker 5, "because Nia thought of it").** Current text line 9: "a clause Nia had put there, not because June had asked." The surviving negative is June's own knowledge (she knows what she didn't ask); Nia's motive now lands once, in Nia's own fallible mouth on the call — "For the record, I didn't put the studio clause in to sweeten it. I meant it." (line 135) — where June can only take her word for it. No narration clause in the notebook section restates it. **REPAIR HOLDS.**
3. **Catalog-box placement (was marker 4, "where it wouldn't be forgotten").** Current text line 37: "carried it to the door, set it against the frame, looked around, and moved the chair that was blocking the door's swing six inches to the left." Every clause is observable placement; the foresight grade is gone and the knees / corner-test / chair move carry Sam's care unassisted. **REPAIR HOLDS.**

## Per-line verdicts

- `EARNED — "Sam picked the box up properly this time, knees" (line 37) — the on-page action that backs it: "knees," cashed in the same breath, with the earlier improper lift shown: "tested a corner of it, lifting an inch, setting it down."`
- `EARNED — "The left edge was good. The value structure held all the way into the corner." (line 159) — the on-page action that backs it: "She stepped in once, looking for where the corner failed. The corner stayed." — perceiver June Park, marked fallible in the same paragraph: "She had not believed that when she painted it."` Re-tested hard as the chapter's closing self-flattery risk: the verdict is craft-specific, the failure-hunt is active, and the hanging stays un-glamorized ("one nail, level enough").
- `EARNED — "it was the best part of the dish. Mara knew it" (line 35) — the on-page action that backs it: "she'd never let Luis buy her a new set."` Aesthetic judgment is June's licensed painter-read of an object; the claim about Mara is backed by her documented behavior.
- `EARNED — "She'll eyeball a run and put a level on it anyway. She's serious." (Asha on Nia, line 71) — the on-page action that backs it: "I've seen her hang at the co-op" — witnessed, in a fallible speaker's mouth, in dialogue June solicited.`
- `EARNED — "I watched her keep six installers moving while the freight elevator was stuck and nobody got loud." (June on Asha, line 133) — the quoted line IS the witnessed action, in dialogue; Nia independently tests it with her own evidence: "I know her invoices. She itemizes."`

Counter-candidates checked and cleared, with reasons:

- "Sam saw the box by the table before they saw anything else in the apartment" (line 23) — attention-grading, but June-observable (Sam crosses straight to it) and immediately converted to action ("tested a corner," "What's the freight?"); no perceptiveness caption follows.
- "Her eyes stopped on FRI DEC 4 / NOON" (line 39) — gaze direction is observable at kitchen range; critically, the narrator adds no discretion grade for Ruth (no "she asked nothing," no tact caption), and June's counter-move carries the cost instead: "June did not turn the receipt over."
- Ruth's "This fall I noticed things. I kept them to myself and called it manners... Some of it was easier for me." (line 41) — self-indictment, not virtue; followed only by "She straightened the strap of her bag." The narrator lets the discomfort sit uncaptioned, per the Ch19 standing order.
- "You can leave that part out," / "We came for the dish." (line 45) and Sam's "That's not an opinion. That's a hand truck." (line 51) — the no-advice mode is enacted in dialogue inside a boundary June set ("I'm not asking"); both exits land on objects and the narration appends zero certification. The fragile care-without-advice mode survives without the narrator explaining its virtue.
- "because this part she knew without notes" (line 65) — June's self-knowledge, cashed by the capped pen and by her accurate recitation of terms; factual preparation, not adjective campaigning.
- "She did the rest before noon." (line 145) — competence-summary risk checked; it is a bare sequence header and every item beneath it is shown with timestamps, attachments, and one deflating detail ("The front room was worse than described").
- The calibration's June-independence hunt comes back empty: the narrator never stamps the no as wise. The cost is stated on-page by the opposing party — "That's a worse offer on every line I have a column for" (Nia, line 127) — conceded by June ("It is"), and held in the objects: "FEB = ." blank until it resolves to "coat," "the radiator is decorative," money landing in March. "She had kept stepping back from paintings as if distance might fix a drawing problem, when the problem was in the drawing" (line 13) and "places where wanting had been scumbled over need" (line 99) are free-indirect self-indictment — the critical framing of June's self-image the pass condition requires, not publicity.
- Marker 1 (mystique): no instance for any tested character. Marker 3 (cosmic figuration): none; the chapter's figuration stays in June's craft vocabulary aimed at her own plan. Marker 4 residue after repair 3: none found elsewhere — placements ("set it on the shelf," "pinned the card," "left the study where she could see it from the table") are all bare. Marker 2: the only generalized-reaction shape left is Sam's "She'll like that better than the dish," a prediction about a named person (Mara) in a fallible speaker's dialogue, not narration.

## Chapter verdict

`CRITICAL-DISTANCE-HELD` — no unattributed publicity survives round 2. All three round-1 repairs verified in current text. Strongest surviving admiring line: "The left edge was good. The value structure held all the way into the corner." (line 159) — earned by perceiver June Park, whose judgment the paragraph marks fallible ("She had not believed that when she painted it") and who actively tests it: "She stepped in once, looking for where the corner failed. The corner stayed."

## REVISION ORDERS

None. Zero PUBLICITY lines this round. Standing caution for Ch21 (not an order): the care-without-advice mode is logged "achieved / fragile" in `tics.md` — the next Ruth/Sam or Nia appearance must not retro-caption this chapter's restraint as virtue, and Sam's chair/box logistics must stay physical, per the Ch20 NPC trajectory notes.
