Thursday.
I didn't wait for the kettle to boil.
Rang Ninuo standing right there in the kitchen, one hand still on the tap, before I could talk myself into waiting another day.
She picked up on the second ring, already half laughing. "You never call this early."
I told her straight, no lead-up. That I'd said it out loud to my daughter the night before — that I wanted to sell a little myself. Not join anything. Not the café mornings, not the team, none of what she has going with Amy and the others.
Just retail. The same instinct I already use in the shop, on the people who come in for their fish oil and their calcium. Same instinct, different products.
There was a pause. Not a long one. Long enough that I wondered if I'd said it too plainly.
"So you don't want the business," she said. Not hurt. Just checking she'd heard right.
"I want to sell things," I said. "I don't want to build a team. I don't want anyone under me, and I don't want to be under anyone either, not really. I just want to order stock and sell it, same as I do now."
She laughed properly then. "You can absolutely do that. Half the people who sign up never touch the team side. I just send you a link — you sign up under my account, as a BA, since you actually want to sell rather than just buy for yourself. You get your own discount, you order what you want, you sell however you want. No quotas. No meetings unless you feel like coming, and you clearly don't."
I hadn't known that. Genuinely hadn't. I'd assumed the whole thing came as one piece — the products, the meetings, the Rowe Street mornings, all of it bolted together whether you wanted the bolts or not.
"That's it?" I said. "That's really all it takes to just — sell things?"
"That's it. I'll send you the link tonight. Takes about a minute to fill in."
I told her one more thing, before I lost the nerve for it. That if I ever met someone — through the shop, or anywhere else — who wanted more than that, who actually wanted what she has, the team, the flights, the whole build-it-yourself version, I'd send them straight to her. Not my world. Hers.
She laughed again, delighted this time, nothing dry about it.
"Nobody's ever offered me that before," she said. "Usually it's the other way round. I love that."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything for a second.
"Send me the link," I said instead. "I'll look at it properly tonight."
She said she would. Asked if I wanted her to talk me through it on the phone now, or just let me read it in peace.
I said I'd read it in peace.
The kettle clicked off behind me, water long since boiled, and I stood there a moment with the phone still warm against my ear, not quite ready to hang up, and not quite sure why.