“Would you like to be queen for a day?” Jack Bailey, the weasel-faced, mustachioed gameshow host, asked his TV viewing audience. Inside the Queen for a Day studio, women applauded vigorously. Seven months pregnant with her fourth child, my mother glanced up from her ironing board and stared wistfully at the television.
On that June afternoon in 1963, I sat on the den sofa playing with my Barbie doll. One day, I fantasized, I would marry a man who would treat me like a princess. Then I’d have a perpetual smile like Barbie’s, instead of a scowl like my mother’s.
Mom pressed down on her iron, de-wrinkling a shirt collar. She might have envisioned herself wearing a cape and crown, cradling four dozen roses. Lost in thought, she set her iron upright. “I mailed them a letter. Maybe I’ll be on there one day.”
I tried to picture my mother lauded like royalty, but my imagination wouldn’t stretch that far.
Mom bent to retrieve another shirt from her clothes basket and gasped. “Shoo! Get out of here.” She fanned away my orphaned opossum. The young marsupial liked to hide between fabric layers. “That thing’s got to go. I’m tired of finding it in my clothes.”
The critter leapt to the floor and scampered under the couch.
Mom cut her eyes at me.
I pretended to be deaf and blind.
Bailey addressed his first Queen for a Day contestant. “What do you want most, and why do you want to win this title?”
“Oh, I need a wheelchair for my son,” the timid lady replied. She backed away from the microphone as if it were a snake.
“For your son?” Bailey clasped the woman’s hand, coaxing her closer to him.
I wondered what my mom would say if Jack Bailey asked her those questions. Would her sob-story send the “applause meter” pulsing favorably? The louder the studio audience clapped for a contestant, the farther right the needle jumped. Onscreen, the image resembled the dial on my father’s ohmmeter—a gadget that measured electrical resistance. Once, I had clapped boisterously next to his test device to see what would happen. The needle didn’t budge. It had disregarded me as blatantly as Dad ignored Mom.
“I could use a cage for my daughter’s ‘possum,” I imagined my mother telling Bailey. “It’s outgrown its cardboard box and keeps turning up in my laundry basket.”
I doubted her request would reap more sympathy than a paralyzed boy’s need for mobility. Mom’s tough times didn’t compare to the typical contestant’s plight.
“Well, if you win Queen for a Day, we’ll see to it that your son gets a wheelchair!” Bailey promised.
Transfixed, Mom watched as fashion models paraded onstage in designer apparel—the day’s prizes. The cocktail dresses and suits they flaunted didn’t look like the ones in my fairytale book. My doll had prettier clothing.
I exchanged Barbie’s swimsuit for her ball gown.
Bailey’s fashion announcer, Jeanne Cagney, spoke with a transatlantic accent like Kathryn Hepburn. “These blouses from Ship’n Shore need little or no ironing,” she enthused.
Mom sighed and resumed pressing Dad’s shirt.
Cagney moved quickly to describing footwear. “There are styles for every occasion in the lovely shoes by Grace Walker. Her Majesty will have a whole array, each pair fit for a queen.
Standing next to me in her drab maternity smock and broken-down nurse shoes, Mom studied the high-heels dangling from Cagney’s grip. What had caught her interest, I couldn’t guess. My mother’s closet held only lace-up footwear and loafers with cushioned soles. I never played dress-up in her belongings. It would have felt too much like playing dress-down.
I studied Barbie’s feet. Her black pumps didn’t match her evening gown, so I substituted white ones. Someday, I’ll have a pair of heels in every color and wear them everywhere. And full-length gloves too!
Mom looked starry-eyed when Jack Bailey gently touched his second contestant’s shoulder. The woman hid her eyes and sniffled.
Does every lady on this show cry? I averted my eyes. What would Dad think about all these weepy women?
My father had no idea what went on while he was at work, though I doubted he cared. At home, he spent his free-time in the garage.
Mom needed to feel appreciated instead of invisible. At nine, I was too immature to register that. In thirty-minute segments, Queen for a Day offered her an escape from her lackluster life. That TV show was her equivalent to my Barbie doll.
Onscreen, Jack Bailey gazed at each haggard housewife as if she were Miss America. He empathized with the women, consoled them, and pledged to lessen their hardships. Mom longed for anyone, even a condescending gameshow host, to pay her some attention.
I didn’t understand my mother’s fascination with Queen for a Day or what fueled it. From what I had witnessed, she didn’t need the prizes offered. She already owned an Amana oven and more cookware than justified. She wore no makeup and had no use for a cocktail dress and spikey heels. A car would have been of no benefit to her either. She didn’t know how to drive.
“Our winner today will receive a year’s supply of TV dinners!” Baily enthused.
Now he was speaking my mother’s language. Our five-, soon-to-be-six, member family often dined on tinfoil wrapped meals. In between, we settled for soup and sandwiches or fried Spam or sloppy joes. I imagined Ken and Barbie chose their entrees from swank restaurant menus. Barbie didn’t own a kitchen, a washing machine, or an iron. Her only job was to look pretty. I wanted her enchanted life when I grew up.
After the queen was selected and crowned, Jack Bailey signed off the airwaves. “We wish we could make every woman in America queen for every, single day!”
Years later, I would stare at my TV screen and share his wish.
Want to read more like this? My new memoir, Clarity, is available now from Amazon.
Diana Estill 