On the night of the fireworks he rests his hand on the back of my neck as we walk. His hand is heavy and tanned brown. I can picture the hand lying dark against my pink, sunburnt neck, the fingers stretched enough to curl around my neck where it meets my shoulder, to cup the rosy hot skin burned by the sun of the summer festival.
We are part of a crowd walking slowly down to the river bank to watch the fireworks. People smile at me as they pass. They smile because I am not one of them, but I have come to watch anyway. I can appreciate this part of their culture, even though I am a foreigner. I can be a part of this event. We will all be a part of this event together, it is for sharing, and we will come away happy and tired and then I will go home. Home to my own country. Tomorrow I will board a plane and go home and one day soon I will share this pleasure with my own people by showing them photographs and telling them about my adventures, and we will all understand each other better. That, I think, is what they believe.
The weight of the brown hand resting on the back of my neck lifts, and Hiroshi points to a stall by the side of the road selling dinner boxes packed with noodles and dumplings and other small delicacies with rice. The stall is lit up by bare bulbs. Plastic flags in red and white stripes hang in an arc from the poles at each corner. The flags flutter in the evening breeze. The breeze and the moving flags make it seem like it should be cool, but it is still hot, the air is dank with humidity, and Hiroshi's warm hand has left a moist print on the back of my neck.
He reaches around my waist and guides me toward the stall, where the stallholder is shouting a welcome and waving his tongs over the range of his merchandise. I am wearing a black rayon dress that hangs from two thin straps at my shoulders. Hiroshi's hand is hot through the rayon of my black dress as though we were skin to skin.
Irasshai! the stallholder shouts. Welcome, hello! Hello Miss America!
He has a row of golden teeth along the