tartish

The point is, walking down Metropolitan, all dressed up, her tartish beauty wasted on the pithecanthropi hanging out in the Kool Man Pops garage, where ice cream trucks congregated like fat, dirty white seals trained to sing Scott Joplin in jingling seal-speak, she was still looking for the way back to his love.

I picture her shoulder-length dark curly hair pinned back, a little make-up perhaps--not tartish but enough.

And within minutes of clocking Liz with the over-friendly landlord, Steve's convinced his tartish old ma is up to her old tricks, so she is.