Thomas Barker

It's not difficult to pinpoint the moment Thomas Barker came into the fold. I had had the joy of being seated opposite him at Jenny Yip's glorious Chinese New Year dinner party and reveled in his stories. A well-known publicist and writer of a rather racy nightlife column, Thomas was a bubbling fountain of gossip that night, not the least of the stories remembered being the one of him and a boy from Brooklyn in the back seat of a Chrysler. A week later I ran into him at a party and he was entertaining us about doing it in the back seat of his father's car. And last week he was going on about the back seat of a Ford Explorer when I just couldn't help it and said, "Well, aren't you just the poster child for Detroit." That's when we bonded.

It's always nice to have a well-connected hussy around; they make it their business to know everyone, to know what everyone is doing and to whom. Like most hussies, Thomas is a bit of a drunk, more than a bit of a flirt, and therefore the life of the party. I remember quite vividly at back seat story number one, an old Jewish real estate baron remarking how much he loved Barker's weekly column; it made me smile.