It's 1926. Twelve-year-old Millie Johanson and her family have just moved into the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha where her father is a wealthy banker at the new Livestock Exchange Building. She meets Fronie Maude, whose mother is a cook at the hotel and whose father works in the stockyards. The girls bond over their secret dessert discovery—butter brickle ice cream. But when Millie's mother forbids the friendship and threatens to move out of the hotel if Millie sees Fronie again, she must decide what's more important—pleasing her mother or her friendship with Fronie.