Angel’s adoptive mother, and Jim Hennings’s wife. Elaine is one of Peter and Kay Wilkinson’s best friends. She lives in New York City and is adamant about helping Angel connect to Chinese culture. Despite her worldly posturing, though, Deming finds her phony and annoying when she takes him and the Wilkinsons to a Chinese restaurant she claims is quite good. Deming can tell the food is very bad, but he nevertheless decides to order for the table in Fuzhounese. When he does this, Elaine makes a remark about his fluency in Mandarin, and Deming corrects her, eventually calling her stupid for misidentifying the language.