Angelica lived in a two-story Hollywood apartment with a central courtyard and an outdoor staircase from the courtyard to the second floor. I went up to apartment 216 and knocked. I heard, breathed rather than said, “Just a minute”.

The door was opened by Angelica, a tall, exquisitely beautiful Brazilian in her mid-twenties, her skin a perfect even shade of brown. Though casually dressed, she had the simple elegance of someone who, with little money, knew effortlessly how to choose and wear her clothes. Her long red nails moved poetically before her as she spoke.

A month ago she had moved into this apartment after finally leaving an abusive boyfriend. She said she contracted HIV through sharing needles with him. Her symptoms were not too advanced and she was able to go out freely and even work part-time. She had a new boyfriend now who came over most evenings and spent the night with her. The way she spoke you could believe she was in love.

The apartment was sparsely furnished, but again with an elegance the belied the lack of money. The whole conversation was so civilized that the harsh California sun outside became hazy and we were soon lost in reminiscences of Rio, the beauty of the Portuguese language and the Portuguese people.

It was somehow sad leaving her, oddly poignant as she waved an elegant goodbye as I went down the stairs.

A week or so later we had call from someone else in the same building, asking for service. This time it was Gerda, and elderly lady who did not have HIV but some other life-threatening condition. She also lived on the second floor, apartment 220, at the end of the courtyard. A frail looking lady, there was something impassive, almost steely, about her. Perhaps it was her sharp gray eyes. I had a sense of a transplanted Miss Marple, an impression reinforced by Gerda’s habit of sitting with her apartment door open, watching the comings and goings of her neighbors. She had a full-on view of the down staircase.

We talked a little of her illness and she thanked me for starting the service up so quickly.
 
“Oh, that was easy”, I said. “We already deliver to somebody else in this building.”

“I know,” she said. “Angelica. It was she who suggested I call you.”

“I’m glad she did. We had a wonderful visit a week ago.”

“I know. She told me.”

“She’s so elegant, serene.”

“Isn’t she?” said Gerda.

“Such style. I guess it goes with being Brazilian”.

“Probably,” said Gerda, and paused. “She’s a man you know.”

“What?”

“She’s a man”.

“No – are you sure?”

She looked at me steadily. “Oh yes.”

“Well in this job I’ve met my share of transvestites and transsexuals, and I can always tell, but Angelica really had me fooled. I would never have guessed. I still can hardly believe it. How do you know”?

“Oh I knew as soon as she moved into the building.”

“How?”

“It’s the way she walks down the stairs. That’s what gives it away.”

I thought back and suddenly I knew she was right. The gray eyes looked absently over to the empty staircase as if she were again watching that elegant but apparently not entirely feminine descent.

“Yes. It’s the way she walks downstairs.”