she 'd gone through an excruciating ceremony where cameras flashed in her eyes while she smiled until her facial muscles screamed , and her hand cramped from holding one end of a huge cardboard check - which the lottery people had been careful to tell her was n't real and could n't be cashed , as if she were the village idiot and could n't have figured that out on her own - but at last it had been over and the paperwork finished , and she 'd begun stepping back into anonymity ... she hoped .