Sammy calls the girl “Queenie” because she is clearly the leader of her little group of girls. “She was the queen,” Sammy says. “She kind of led them” around the store, showing them how to carry their shoulders, how to walk, how to hold themselves. This particular girl exudes a certain confidence that the others seem to lack. Sammy is certain that she can probably feel him and the other checkout clerk staring at her from across the store, but she doesn’t acknowledge them at all.

Further, the straps of her bikini top have fallen down around her shoulders, and she does not bother to put them back up. She holds her head “so high” with a “prim” expression on her face so as to look beautiful and queenlike. In other words, she seems to have a rather regal bearing, despite the fact that she is wearing a bikini and has messy hair, bare feet, and fallen-down straps.

Later, when Sammy’s manager confronts the girls about being “indecently” dressed, according to store policy, Queenie asserts that they “are decent” and pushes out her lower lip,

getting sore now that she remembers her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A&P must look pretty crummy.

The Fancy Herring Snacks that she’s purchased even seem to symbolize her affluence, and she is clearly not used to be called indecent by anyone, let alone by someone so beneath her in social and economic station as one who manages a grocery store.