THis is the first chapter of my first novel! I need some help knowing if it's clear, and ANYTHING you can tell me will help.

So, what do you think? (and is it ok to just put this here? I'm new!)

Shopping

A sick knot began to form in the pit of Lisa Clark’s stomach as she remembered how tenderly the grubby, young mother had kissed her infant’s fingers before darting from the aisle. Had the strange girl dashed straight out of the department store? Or had she really headed to the Ladies’ room, as she’d said? And, if so, where was she now? What could be keeping her?
Lisa studied the now peaceful infant in her aching arms. The child’s dark hair was plastered to her head, her blue eyes were puffy from crying, the faded blue sleeper was stained and the odor of stale urine rose up to sting Lisa’s nostrils.
It had been a long week. The weather had turned unseasonably hot and muggy for spring. Mr. Harker, her boss, had been in a nasty mood. The newest employee in the accounting department of a large investing firm, she’d soon discovered why there had been an opening. Mr. Harker took his bad moods out on his most recent hiree. Today had been the worst day yet, with him yelling at her, telling her she could be easily replaced.
“A quiet weekend, an afternoon on the beach, a few drinks tomorrow night at Rocky’s with Julie,� she muttered. “I wasn’t planning on an evening of babysitting!�
What was she supposed to do with the baby, she wondered? Awkwardly pushing her chestnut brown hair out of her eyes with one wrist, she began circling the store, just as her thoughts circled in her head. She didn’t want to call the authorities, but if she didn’t, what else could she do? Due to her own experiences as a foster child, just the thought of alerting someone made her feel sick. Surely, the mother would return any second, apologetic and frightened. And if she didn’t return, she asked herself? Her stomach twisted and she felt twin trickles of sweat slip down her sides. How long should she wait?
She used her cell phone and tried to call her mother or Julie for advice. Her mother would say to call the police, she was certain. But she and Julie had met in foster care, had both experienced the horrors of having no family to call their own, no one to protect them. She wondered what Julie would do. There was no message she could think of to leave on either answering machine, so she was back to figuring it out on her own.
“This is not the evening I had planned,� she grumbled aloud to the quiet baby. “My arm is about to drop off! Five minutes. That’s what your mother said. Five minutes! And here we are, walking till my feet blister, an hour and a half later.�
The baby squirmed on her arm and Lisa changed her tone, crooning the rest of her irritation as if it were soothing words. “All I wanted was a book. Some hot pirate romance. Salt spray, crashing waves, helpless maiden.� She giggled. “So, I found a real helpless maiden, didn’t I? Know any pirates, kiddo? It’s Friday night and I don’t have a date.�
This earned her an odd look from a slim business woman, as she walked past.
“Great, now I’m talking to myself.� Another squirm, a mewling cry. “No, you’re right, I’m talking to you. Gettin’ hungry? Let’s go eat. You’ll love the menu here,� she joked.
“Excuse me?� said the woman behind the lunch counter.
“Oh, ah, nothing. I just wanted to order.� She refrained from talking out loud to the baby until she had her dinner, a B.L.T., chips and iced tea. Balancing the tray and baby, along with the diaper bag and her book all the way to the first table, a distance of maybe four feet, was more of a trick than she’d expected. Sliding awkwardly into the attached plastic seat, she muttered, “Boy, oh boy, do I have a few things to say to your mother when she gets back.�
She popped a rather scummy bottle of formula into the waiting, tiny mouth, and began speaking in that sing-songy way people sometimes use on babies.
“I could be an axe murderer, or one of those whackos who sells babies on the Internet. Yes, I could.� At this, the baby stopped sucking and stared at her for a moment. Then, apparently deciding that she was neither, began to suckle again.
“What’s your name? Where did your mother go?� Huge blue eyes stared trustingly up at Lisa, but the babe offered no information.
She hadn’t thought to ask the mother for her name, or even the baby’s name, so she couldn’t very well page her. The store wasn’t big enough for Lisa to have missed her, anyway. She had a vision of herself calling the police and the young mother returning, panicked and sorry, having some excuse for her absence
She glanced down at the cover of the paperback she’d picked out. A half-naked young woman was tied to the mast, long hair falling in a wild mass to her waist. An incredibly handsome pirate, despite a rather sinister eye-patch held a cutlass above her. Just two hours ago she’d thought it was the perfect book; an innocent young stow away, gentle-yet-commanding pirate, plenty of passion.
In fact, just a few hours ago, she’d been so caught up in the story she might have finished the first chapter right there in the store. But the piercing screams being emitted from a tiny infant a few aisles away had made it impossible for her to concentrate. She doubted there had been many crying babies on ships. Especially pirate ships.
She’d peeked over the top of the book to see a girl of maybe 16 or 17, unkempt and none-too-clean, bouncing a tiny, but very vocal baby irritably in her arms.
“Oh, please, shut up!� the girl had muttered under her breath. She’d been trying to push a shopping cart with one hand and jiggle the baby with the other but now gave up and set the howling, red-faced infant down on a thin receiving blanket on the bottom of the metal cart. As the tiny body came in contact with the hard surface, the screaming reached a new level of intensity.
The girl began digging through a faded diaper bag perched on the seat of the cart.
Let her find that baby a pacifier, Lisa had thought, or a bottle, but was dismayed as instead the girl rooted around and pulled out a package of chewing gum, nonchalantly unwrapped a piece and folded it into her mouth.
By now, Lisa could feel the baby’s screams in the pit of her stomach. She’d always had a soft spot for the babies in the foster homes she’d been in. Not only were they helpless and motherless, but they were almost always happy to snuggle in Lisa’s arms whiled she crooned and rocked them.
While she could have quite gladly grabbed this young woman by the shoulders and shook her, she doubted that doing so would quiet the baby. Maybe she could play up on the girl’s maternal pride, for despite her age, the baby obviously belonged to her.
Pitching her voice above the screams, she yelled, “Is it a boy or a girl?�
The girl’s head snapped up, surprised, guessed Lisa, that she wasn’t alone.
“A girl,� she yelled back. She bent over the cart and patted the wailing infant gently on the belly, studying her as if she were a science experiment that was going horribly wrong.
“She cries like this a lot.� She looked up, making eye contact for the first time. Lisa noticed the nearly purple depressions beneath her eyes. “I don’t know,� she shook her head, “I feed her, change her, walk her. She just screams. Sometimes, I just can’t take it anymore,� her voice quavered, “then I put her down for a minute, ya know? And just chill.�
The baby was red and sweating from exertion, her little face screwed up in an expression of infant rage. Her breathing was coming in quick gasps and sobs and she sounded as if she were going hoarse. A few people slowed as they went by the aisle, and Lisa figured they were expecting to see some poor infant being murdered for all the noise this baby was making.
She had never before been so desperate to make a noise stop.
“Could I hold her?� she yelled.
Now the young mother was surprised. Her look said ‘why would anyone want to?’ but after a second’s hesitation, she nodded. Lisa reached down into the shopping cart, easing her right hand under the baby’s head, cringing as she felt the hard metal of the cart through the thin, grungy blanket against the back of her fingers.
She remembered caring for a colicky baby as one of her teenaged babysitting jobs and recalled a trick that baby's mother had shown her. Very gently she laid the baby, still screaming her near-hoarse cry, face-down over her left arm, with her head resting by her elbow and one thigh securely held in her left hand. With her right hand, she carefully stroked the tiny back and at the same time, she paced a few steps in each direction.
The effect was the same as if the baby had come with an on-off switch, and she had turned it off.
Silence.
Well, almost silence. Little huffs and sobs still wracked the small, damp body.
The young mother stared, open-mouthed, as Lisa paced left and right across the aisle with the now quiet babe.
“Wow!� She stared at Lisa as if she were her hero. “She really likes you! She always cries this time of day, no matter what I do.� The young girl stood still for a minute, watching warily. “Look, I know I’m asking a lot, but I really need to run to the bathroom and there’s no way to hold her there, and she’ll start crying again, anyway. Could you hold her for just five minutes, please? I just want to grab a few things on my way back.� She was already backing away, down the aisle, away from both of them. “Not five minutes!�
Lisa found that quieting the baby had left her feeling rather all-powerful and benevolent. Poor girl, she thought. Too young to be on her own with a baby, she looked like she needed nothing so much as to be mothered herself, though a bath and a long nap would have helped. Her hair hung lank and uncared for. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt anything.
“Go on,� she waved a carefully manicured hand in the direction of the ladies’ room. “Take your time. I can read a little more of my book while we wait.�
Coming back toward them, the girl reached over, grasped a tiny hand and gave it a kiss before turning a relieved smile on Lisa.
“Back in a minute,� the girl sang as she ran from the aisle.