The Roaring Days of Zora Lily

The novel opens in 2023 Washington, DC, where Sylvia, a costume conservator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, prepares the Hollywood Glamour Exhibition. The final batch of costumes comes from the 1928 film The Star, starring Greta Garbo, and is attributed to the well-known designer Michele Cleménte. Sylvia notices that the wide necklines diverge sharply from Cleménte's signature preference for modest, high-necked designs. While placing the centerpiece gown, a white satin dress with a beaded star, on a mannequin, she discovers the designer tag has fallen off. Beneath it, she finds a name embroidered in white thread that is not Cleménte's. She checks all eight costumes from the film and finds the same hidden signature, prompting her to ask: Who is Zora Lily?

The narrative shifts to 1924 Seattle, where twenty-one-year-old Zora Hough lives in poverty in the Ballard neighborhood with her large family. She mends clothes alongside her stern, overworked mother, Lillian, to support a household of nine. Zora's father turned to alcohol after a logging accident, leaving her older brother, Tommy, to drop out of university and work at a sawmill as the family's primary breadwinner. Despite the hardship, Zora harbors a passion for fashion design.

Zora's best friend, Rose Tiller, a bold young woman who dances at an underground club, persuades Zora to come out for the evening. At the Bucket of Blood, a speakeasy beneath the Louisa Hotel, Zora is overwhelmed by the jazz music, the diverse crowd, and the fashionable clothing. At the Alhambra, a second club, she encounters Harley Aldridge, a wealthy and charming British man who makes a strong impression. The evening ends in tragedy: When Zora returns home, she learns that Tommy has been killed in a logging accident.

With the family's primary earner gone, Rose's mother arranges an interview for Zora with the Harringtons, a wealthy family. Zora accepts a live-in nanny position offering a private room, meals, evenings and weekends off, and good pay she can send home. At the household, she bonds with the staff but is warned about Elsbeth Pritchard, a scheming junior maid who fixates on Harley, a close friend of the Harringtons, and views Zora as a rival. Elsbeth begins a campaign of sabotage: A rock Zora's brother Harrison gave her disappears from her room, and her uniform is slashed.

Rose persuades Zora to fix costumes backstage at the Alhambra, where she earns small payments and befriends the dancers. Despite Zora's attempts to deflect suspicion, Harley continues to seek her out. After Elsbeth trips Zora at a dinner party, cutting her hand badly, Harley tends to the wound and later sends a necklace through Rose. One rainy night after Zora drinks tainted gin, Harley drives her home and they share their first kiss. Their relationship deepens rapidly. Zora confides her dream of owning a boutique and shows Harley her sketchbooks. He reveals that he is a bootlegger using his father's furniture shipping business as cover and gives her a sewing machine to bring her designs to life. When the Harringtons summon Zora, she expects to be fired, but they offer her a raise: Harley had spoken to Jonathan Harrington months earlier about his intentions, and the family supports the relationship.

Dean Billings, a Hollywood producer, visits the Alhambra and offers Rose and Jessie, another dancer, film roles, along with a costume design position for Zora. Zora declines, realizing her dream is a boutique in Seattle, not Hollywood.

Danger intrudes when Ricky Wells, a former schoolmate who had bullied Zora and whose father is a city policeman, and two accomplices ambush Rose, Ellis Jones, and Zora outside the club. Ellis, Rose's boyfriend and a Black trumpet player, is beaten severely, and Ricky attempts to sexually assault Rose before Harley and others intervene. Zora smuggles the traumatized Rose into the Harrington house overnight. Two blows fall simultaneously: The Harringtons fire Zora for breaking the inviolable rule against overnight guests, and Harley is arrested for bootlegging after Ricky's policeman father targets him in retaliation. Harley is sentenced to deportation to England for two years. Before leaving, he sets up a bank account for Zora and tells her he was planning to propose. She tells him that if he asks, she will say yes. She watches his car drive away, heartbroken but unwilling to follow because she cannot abandon her family or her dream.

With her job and her love both gone, Zora reverses her earlier decision and joins Rose and Jessie in Hollywood. At MGM Studios, she discovers the promised design position is actually a seamstress job in a cramped back room. Rose and Jessie thrive as dancers, but Zora works grueling hours doing basic mending, growing isolated and exhausted. Her letters to Harley become strained and infrequent as shame over her situation creates emotional distance.

When Cleménte quits the film after a failed affair with the director, destroying all existing Garbo costumes, Mrs. Thompson, the costume manager, asks Zora if she can design and construct all nine replacements in three and a half weeks. Working around the clock, Zora does fittings with Garbo, who suggests she use "Zora Lily" as her professional name. Zora hand-stitches her new signature into each garment beneath where the designer tag will go. After filming wraps, however, the studio orders Zora to sew Cleménte's tags over her own signatures. Because Zora signed only a seamstress agreement and Cleménte's original contract was never voided, the studio has no legal obligation to credit her. She receives a financial settlement in exchange for her silence and leaves Hollywood devastated.

Zora returns to Ballard to find her family transformed: Her father is sober and employed, the house has indoor plumbing and electricity, and her siblings are thriving. After a period of self-doubt, a creative spark reignites when she improvises a costume redesign for Jessie. With a recommendation from Mrs. Harrington, Zora lands a seamstress job at Carman's, Seattle's leading women's apparel shop. She spends evenings creating original designs, one of which generates a line of customers when displayed in the store window. Promoted and given a design contract, Zora leases a small shop space, but among her mail she finds her letter to Harley returned unopened. Concluding he has moved on, she channels her heartbreak into work.

The grand opening of her boutique, Zora Lily, is an immediate success. Zora's sister Sarah manages operations, their mother sews from home, and their father handles repairs. Zora's signature wide-neckline designs attract Seattle's elite, while ready-made clothes at lower prices fulfill her belief that everyone deserves to look good. One night, sewing alone past midnight, Zora hears a knock on the window. She looks up to see Harley standing outside. She unlocks the door and greets him: "Hello, Harley."

In 2023, Sylvia traces the hidden signature to Zora Lily Hough and travels to Seattle to meet Zora and Harley's three adult children, Helena Rose, Maureen Zora, and Elias, who confirm the Hollywood story. The family lends photographs, letters, and preserved garments, and Sylvia creates an additional exhibition room honoring Zora's legacy. At a private viewing, Helena tells Sylvia that Zora would have been proud. The family gifts Sylvia Zora's signature black satin bow tie headband with a note: "Some things don't belong in a museum" (398). Sylvia slides it on and leaves the museum wearing it.

In an epilogue set in Italy in 1932, Harley reads the letter Zora once wrote him, the one returned unopened, which she saved and gave him on the first morning of their honeymoon. Sitting on a balcony overlooking Florence, Zora tells him she cannot imagine life ever being better. Then she corrects herself: "Oh. But, Harley. It will be" (402).