Excerpt from The Roaring Days of Zora Lily by Noelle Salazar, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I pulled my loupes back down and resumed placing the beads that formed the shimmering star. Thirty minutes later I sat up, set the magnifying glasses on the table, and arched my back in a well-deserved stretch.

"Okay, you," I said to the dress. "Time to get you on a mannequin."

Sliding my arms beneath the gown, I lifted it carefully and carried it to the far end of the table where a mannequin with roughly Greta Garbo's 1927 torso measurements stood in wait, minus its arms which would be attached once I got the dress on it.

Unfortunately, the wide neckline made it hard to secure.

"You're pretty," I muttered, trying to keep the dress from slipping to the floor while I reached for one of the arms. "But a pain in my ass."

I clicked an arm into place, moving the capped sleeve over the seam where the appendage attached to the shoulder, and making sure the hand was resting just right on the mannequin's hip. Satisfied, I reached for the other arm and did the same on the other side.

"Not bad, headless Garbo," I said, straightening the gown and smiling at the beaded star glimmering under the lights.

I grabbed my notepad and made my way around the dress, writing down problems that still needed to be addressed. Loose threads, the unraveling second tier of the skirt, and a bit of fabric that looked like it had rubbed against something and was scuffed. There was a stain on the hem in back, and one of the capped sleeves sagged, leading me to investigate and find a spot inside where the elastic was stretched out of shape.

My eyes moved along every inch of fabric, bead, and thread, my fingers scribbling notes as I took in what was easier to see with the dress hanging rather than sprawled on a tabletop. As I scrutinized the neckline in back, I noticed the tag was exposed and reached up to tuck it in. But as I pulled the material back, the tag fluttered to the floor.

With a sigh, I bent to pick it up. I could leave the fix until morning, but as I had nothing but an empty apartment waiting for me, I began the task of detaching the arms of the mannequin and sliding the dress back off and onto the table.

"Always something with you ladies," I said, grabbing a needle and thread. "Can't complain, I guess. Hottest date I've had in a while."

But as I turned my attention to the spot the tag had fallen from, I frowned and pulled the dress closer, peering at a small, elegant stitch no longer than the length of the tag that had covered it.

"Is that..."

I grabbed my loupes and looked again, the stitching now magnified and leaving zero doubt that beneath the tag, in white thread and a beautiful freehand stitch, was a name—and it wasn't Cleménte's.

Sitting back, I removed my glasses and stared at the gorgeous dress with its beautiful wide neckline and capped sleeves, the beaded star, the tiered skirt that was so unlike Cleménte in style, and wondered aloud to the empty room—

"Who the hell is Zora Lily?"

2

Seattle. 1924

The slender gray thread slid snakelike across the back of my hand as I pushed the needle through the delicate remnants of fabric surrounding a tear I'd stitched only last week.

"Damn," I whispered as several more strands of the shredded material unraveled.

"Language," my mother muttered beside me, her own sewing brisk, almost savage as she stabbed her needle in and out of a seam.

I smelled the onion on her breath from the potato soup we'd eaten for lunch as she grumbled.

"It's not a ball gown, Zora. Work faster," she said as she moved to her old sewing machine to finish the piece she was working on. "You have more pressing matters to tend to."

But I'd promised my youngest sister, Eva, I'd stitch a heart-shaped patch this time to cover the worn knee. And I'd found the perfect bit of pink material in our scrap basket to do it. She didn't ask for much, and it was such a little thing to make her happy. Besides, a promise was a promise, as she'd reminded me, her big blue eyes wide with hope. It had nearly broken my heart. It seemed unfair a five-year-old should know so early in life to keep her expectations low. But such was life when you were born into poverty, your father was the town drunk, and all your clothes were threadbare hand-me-downs from your six older siblings, held together by patches. You learn quick and early to keep your sights low and your needs nonexistent.

Excerpted from The Roaring Days of Zora Lily by Noelle Salazar. Copyright © 2023 by Noelle Salazar. Excerpted by permission of Mira Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.